


Ghost In Your House (Ghost In Your Arms)

by Hero_in_Heels



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And other psychic stuff, Angst, Bisexual Allura (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Drama and Romance, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Adam (Voltron), Gay Keith (Voltron), Gay Shiro (Voltron), Hurt Lance, Just expect lots of inaccuracies, Kinda, Lance (Voltron) Has Issues, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lesbian Romelle (Voltron), M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Murder, Murder mystery but not really cause we all know who did it, Mutual Pining, Non-Canonical Character Death, Not sure how bad it'll be, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), One of our boys is an idiot who doesn't realize his own feelings, Pining Keith (Voltron), Police Officer Keith (Voltron), Probably police Inaccuracies too, Protective Keith (Voltron), Psychic Lance (Voltron), Violence, Worried Keith (Voltron), and Aura, broganes, lance can see ghosts, writer lance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-03-02 04:36:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18803842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hero_in_Heels/pseuds/Hero_in_Heels
Summary: Lance is different. Always has been.He sees things other people don't, sees people that other people don't.He sees the dead.____________________________“You have to help me!”“Not now!” Lance whispers, teeth clenched and eyes darting around to make sure no one noticed him talking to nothing.Right then the white haired man joins them at the bar, standing several feet away.“Him!” The boy shouts, pointing over at the man, “He’s the one that killed me!”_____________________________Veronica is dead and it's Lance's fault. And he can't take it, everyone is always staring at him, eyes full of pity. He can't stay in a place where everyone thinks they know what happened, think that it's any of their business.So he leaves, runs off to his grandpa's old cabin that he left to Lance and his siblings when he died.Things only go downhill from there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Join The Whisperers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17313662) by [Sheksper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheksper/pseuds/Sheksper). 



> Title is from Ghosting by Mother Mother
> 
> https://youtu.be/UrDBxz_FjGw

Every night, Lance dreams of blood and the color blue.

The blood coats his hands, puddles all around him, and stains his clothes. The stench is so thick in the air, he can taste it.

Surrounding him is blue.

A dark dark sorrowful blue that spreads like greedy tendrils and envelops everything, pushing into every nook and cranny. It grasps onto everything it finds, covering it, coating it and eating it. It blinds him and shoves its way past his lips, down his throat and chokes him, smothers him.

He can’t breathe through all this blue.

His head is pounding, eyes stinging. It’s too much.

Flames lick at his skin, burn him. He hears his own flesh sizzle. Around then he starts screaming his throat raw and Veronica or Abuelo will wake him up.

 

* * *

 

Lance is where he always is, sitting on his bed, shiny black laptop open, staring at a blank word document. He can’t seem to find any of the right words. It’s like his mind has turned to ash and soot just like his childhood home.

“You’re out of food, you know,” Veronica says, dropping down next to him, the large abundance of fluffy blankets and quilts left undisturbed by her presence, the bed doesn’t even dip or shift. He doesn’t really understand how it’s possible that she’s sitting, how she does any of the things she does but it’s not like he’s tried to figure it out.

“I know,” he says quietly, eyes not leaving his laptop screen.

Veronica gives him an unimpressed look that he knows is only there to mask her concern. It’s something she’s done since they were little kids. “You should get outside, Lance, you’ve been cooped up in here for weeks. Come on, don’t you miss the sun?”

He types a sentence then immediately deletes it. “Not particularly.”

“Lance,” she says and this time there’s something different in her voice, something sad and desperate. “Please go outside, I’m worried about you.” He lets out a long drawn-out sigh. Veronica always loved lording her older sibling status over him and telling him what to do. Even death couldn’t stop her from bossing him around.

But that familiar tug of guilt eats away at his insides and he finds himself agreeing. “Fine.”

She fizzles out of reality, reappearing a few feet away. “Yes!”

If someone was watching the way the two of them behave, they’d probably assume that Lance is older and Veronica the younger sibling. By the way she acts, you’d have no idea that she’s ~~twenty~~ twenty-one. It’s not how they used to be. Before he was the goofy one. She’s pretty much how she’s always been but now it seems like she goes out of her way to act silly. He thinks that she’s trying to cheer him up, make him laugh. Or maybe she just feels the need to fill the empty space his old personality has left.

He arches his back and stretches. The downside to writing is he often spends hours sitting in uncomfortable positions. He’s definitely going to have back problems when he’s older. He twists his neck in a circle, getting multiple loud cracks in response. He hears that cracking your neck is supposed to be bad for you but it’s not like he’s exactly a beacon of healthy life choices. He dropped out of school to run away and live in a cabin in the woods after all.

Veronica gives a small wave before disintegrating to give him some privacy to get ready. With a groan, he gets to his feet and prepares for the day, sadly changing out of his very comfy pajamas. He throws on a tank top and a pair of shorts, already bracing himself for the heat of Arus, California in the spring.

He grabs his keys off the reddish-orange wooden bedside table, they jingle and clang against each other, alerting Veronica that he’s unfortunately ready to go. She sticks her head through the wall, beckoning him to follow her before leaving again. For a moment he considers ignoring her and just going back to bed or maybe saying something funny and witty.

Instead, he just does as she wishes and heads outside where she waits by Blue. Blue is Veronica’s old, super old rusty beat-up pickup truck she left to him. The navy blue paint is peeling, two of the windows are cracked and he doesn’t think it’s been washed once since Veronica first got it.

But she loves this stupid truck and so does he.

He hops in and Veronica appears in the passenger seat. For a second, he almost tells her to put her seatbelt on but he keeps his mouth shut, bites his lips until he sees in the review mirror that they’ve turned a painful red. Blue takes a moment to start up, roaring and making the entire truck shake. And then they’re off, racing down the dirt roads and towards town.

“Lance, put the windows down, will ya?” She asks.

“Why?” He asks, mostly just to be evasive and annoy her.

“‘Cause it’s like a hundred degrees!”

“Uh, you can’t even feel it,” he says, fingers tapping against the steering wheel.

“Yeah, but you can and I am a very empathic person,” she says, pausing before looking him up and down and pointing a maroon painted nail at him. “Plus, you’re creating a small pool of sweat and it’s really gross.”

“You’re the one who broke the air conditioner,” he complains, muttering it under his breath but pushes the grey button that opens the window nonetheless. Veronica can’t feel the pine-scented wind that blows into the car but she beams at him anyway and at least he still gets to see her smile.

The wind tosses Lance’s hair about, brushing it up against his cheeks, tickling his face but Veronica’s is unmoving.

Just another reminder that she’s gone shoved in his face.

The drive is long and the car is shaky, throwing him around like a flimsy doll when they reach the uneven gravel roads that crunch under the tires. Eventually, they arrive at the town, finally able to smoothly glide across a nice clean street.

Arus is a magical place.

It’s a beautiful town of course, but what always draws him here is how different it is compared to most places.

Green plants grow everywhere, vines crawling over houses and stores. Little purple plants forcing their way through sidewalk cracks, and people’s yards look like small jungles. And the flower he’s only ever seen here in Arus, the Juniberry, everywhere you look.

The buildings are all various unusual colors and different sizes. The people are happy and unique, always being who they really are.

He had quite the overactive imagination when he was a child and this town only made it reach newer crazier heights. Combining the way Arus looks with a forest he loved to explore and find new wonders then you’ve got somewhere that he thought just had to house some sort of magical creature. He used to spend hours searching for that creature, hoping maybe it’d be like him or at least understand what’s wrong with him.

It’s like Arus is in its own little bubble, not to say that everybody is naive and unaware of what’s going on around the world, just that they don’t really care, that they’ll do whatever makes them happy.

“God, I’ve missed it here,” Veronica says, ducking down slightly to get a good look through the windshield.

“We were here only a couple weeks ago,” he points out as he turns down a particularly crowded street.

“It’s been well over a month, Lance.”

“Oh really? My bad.”

“It’s not just that, though. This place was such a big part of our childhoods,” she says with a tilt of her head. “We came here every single summer, it feels almost like coming home after a long time away. The nostalgia is strong.”

She’s simply happy and reminiscing and he knows that but her words have an unintended painful effect. It causes him to think about how it’s been so long since he’s been home and seen the rest of his family, how he doesn’t think he can ever go back. His thought swirl and circle like small children lost in a maze.

It stings, to say the least.

He takes a right turn into the grocery store parking lot, luckily finding a spot pretty close to the front doors. He pulls the car to a stop, gives it a moment to rumble and growl before shutting down. Veronica once again disappears, joining him once he’s already gotten several feet away from Blue.

There’s a loose rock in the middle of the sidewalk and he pauses to stare at it, he pulls his foot back and kicks it as hard as he can. It slides across the cement before slamming against the store wall. Veronica rolls her eyes at him and he continues walking.

Doing that though brings him unwanted attention as a purple-eyed girl with blonde hair that’s pulled up into two long pigtails notices him and rushes over. She wears a pretty pink sundress with blue polka dots and her aura is a mess of negative emotions.

Behind her, a short ghost with red hair follows after her.

“Hi, I’m looking for my brother,” she says, handing him a piece of paper from that stack she’s carrying. “He’s been missing for a week now. Please, have you seen him?”

Lance looks down at the paper, already expecting what he sees.

It’s the ghost haunting her.

His heart squeezes.

He knows what it’s like to lose someone you love, lose a sibling. It is a pain that will never go away and it’s not nearly as bad as it is for anyone else because Lance actually gets to still see her. He can still talk to her and tell jokes.

He can’t imagine what it’s like to for a loved one to truly be gone, never able to see them again.

 _I guess_ , Lance thinks, _I’m lucky in some ways._

She doesn’t even know yet.

He shakes his head softly, feels his eyebrows knit together. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” she says, nodding her head and taking the photo back, eyes blinking rapidly to he assumes to stop the tears. “Thank you anyway.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches the dead boy stare sadly at his sister.

The look on his face is an expression Lance knows all too well. It’s the same face Veronica wore during the months after her death when she had to watch their family in pain, mourning her and there was nothing she could do. Late at night, locked away in Lance’s room, the two of them would cry about it, trying their best to comfort one another but in all honestly not doing much. That’s about when he started to push Rachel and everyone else in their family away.

Just like those very early mornings with Veronica, Lance can’t find the right words to say to this poor girl. He supposes there’s probably nothing he could say. He doesn’t say anything and she walks away, approaching someone else and quickly getting another no that clearly wears on her.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” Veronica asks.

He shakes his head, no.

Veronica makes a disappointed humming noise, acknowledging his answer but saying nothing else. The encounter with the girl has soured whatever decent mood he was in before. Now he drags his feet as he enters the store, carelessly picking up a green plastic basket and letting it swing and hit against his thigh.

The lights inside are terrible bright fluorescent light that reflects on the shiny beige floor. People slowly wander around, picking random things off shelves, inspecting them before putting them back. Little kids run around excitedly, shouting about nonsense and playing in those bright yellow carts designed as a car.

He’s always hated grocery shopping. It’s a long boring endeavor as he trudges through the building, being irresponsible and only really buying junk food. If his mama could see him now, she would be so disappointed. She would bop him on the back of his head and go on a whole spiel about the importance of eating healthy. The lecture would end with a “love you mijo” and an “I love you mama” as they always do.

In the frozen section, he lifts up his hand and slides his fingers across the glass doors, creating lines in the foggy condensation. His hand comes back cold and damp and he grimaces at the feeling, wiping it off on his shirt and moving on, snatching up an armful of frozen tv dinners.

“Get apples,” Veronica says, gesturing towards the produce section where a large abundance of shiny red apples are stacked in a tall pyramid. He never got why they did that. Sure, it’s attention grabbing but it’s only doomed for disaster when it inevitably gets knocked over.

Attempting to look casual, he glances around, eyes darting in search others to make sure they’re alone. “Ugh, why?”

“Cause you’re acting like a twelve-year-old left home alone for the first time. You can’t just live off junk food, Lance. You need to buy something healthy so you don’t get scurvy and die.”

“God, you sound just like mama.”

“Someone has to keep you alive,” she says before planting herself in front of him, arms folded firmly. “Seriously though, little brother, buy some fucking apples.”

“Since when are you so passionate about apples?”

She lets out a sigh that despite him being inches away, he doesn’t feel the release of air that should hit his face. “I’m just going to keep annoying you until you do.”

“Oh my god, fine.”

Sulking like a child, he makes his way towards the pyramid of fruit, shoes squeaking and click-clacking against the floor. He carefully tears a plastic bag off the roll and throws several random apples into it without a second glance. “There are you happy?” He asks with a glare.

“Ecstatic,” she says, voice empty and monotone. It almost makes him laugh. Almost. Instead, the corners of his lips twitch upward.

A terrible hideous haircut walks passed him right then, squeezing in between him and the display of apples. The owner of the horrendous haircut begins collecting apples as Lance stares in horror. He tilts his head towards Veronica, eyes moving back and forth between her and the disgusting hairstyle, silently asking her if she’s seeing what he’s seeing.

“Is that a fucking mullet?” She asks.

He nods.

“Oh my god,” She says, covering her mouth in shock and horror. “Am I in hell? Is that what’s happening right now?”

“Are you saying it’s still the 80s in hell?” He asks, voice a quiet paranoid whisper.

“It’d make sense, don’t you think? I mean, just look at this dude’s hair, what other hairstyles would be in hell?”

“Frosted tips,” he suggests.

She nods solemnly. “Good point.”

The entire rest of the time they spend at the store, Veronica continues coming up with other hairstyles that she thinks belong in hell. He doesn’t add much else to the conversation but she doesn’t seem to mind, having fun simply by condemning ugly haircuts by herself.

He listens to her prattle on and on as he gets in line the check out line, fighting the urge to laugh and gain the attention of random strangers. The line is long and every minute that goes by with him waiting and not moving up, he feels a part of him die and fade away. By the end of it, he’s so tired that he’s genuinely considering just lying down on the floor and going to sleep.

Instead, he just leaves, walking out the sliding glass doors and imagining he opened them with his mind, maybe using the force. Though to be honest, he really really doesn’t want any more strange abilities. He can’t even control the ones he has. He wouldn’t be constantly followed by weird ghosts that want something from him all the time if he could. He wouldn’t have had to run away to escape the blue.

While he was in the store, the sky has clouded over, turning a silver grey color and blocking out the scorching sun. He hopes it rains, he loves the rain.

“Oh! The rat tail style is definitely in hell!”

Lance begins unloading the groceries, haphazardly tossing them into the backseat. “Yeah, probably. Liberty spikes too.”

Her eyes shine at that, a loud cackle bubbles out passed her lips and she wraps her arms around her stomach, leaning over forward slightly. “You would look so bad with liberty spikes.”

“Oh please, I could pull off anything,” he says, pretending to flip an imaginary wave of hair as he gets in the car.

“Lance, I’m your sister, I was there for every single one of your terrible cringy phases. Don’t make me start listing them.”

He puts his hands up in a panicked surrender. “All right now, let’s not be hasty.”

“Just reminding you what I know.”

Taking his keys out of his pocket, he searches through the messy keyrings, full of way too many keys. Most of which he doesn’t even know what they go to. Finally, he finds the old dirty key that used to be a bright glossy silver but is now a dull grey.

It takes multiples attempts of twisting the key, trying to turn on the stupid piece of junk truck and an argument with Veronica about whether or not he’s flooding it but eventually, they’re back on the road, driving home.

His knee bounces up and down, eyes flickering around the world outside, watching friends and families walk down the sidewalk, talking and smiling. Lance has already reached the point where he just wants to curl up and go to sleep. He misses his bed and his fluffy blankets and his fridge.

And he gets so close.

So so close.

But then Veronica shouts, “Stop the car!”

He lets out a choked gasp, foot immediately slamming against the breaks. The car jolts to a violent stop, throwing him forward slightly and causing the seatbelt to cut into his skin. Adrenaline and panic through his veins but luckily there are no other cars around them.

“What the fuck, Veronica?!”

“Look!” She flings her arm passed his face, pointing out his window. He lets out a sigh and turns his head to look. “It’s Coran’s Diner! We have to go in!”

“That’s why you almost had me crash the car!? Are you insane!?”

She pouts, sticking out her lip gloss covered bottom lip. “We haven’t gone since we were kids.”

He groans. “I hate you so much,” he says as he turns into the Coran’s Diner parking lot.

He gets out of the car as slowly as he can just to be spiteful but she doesn’t wait, disappearing from the car and materializing on the front steps of the diner, hands clasped behind her back in excitement. He slowly makes his way across the sidewalk, carefully stepping over a child’s chalk drawing of a rainbow.

The door swings open and the jingling of a bell goes off. As he walks inside, a wave of cool air hit him, it smells familiar and delicious, making his mouth water.

A beautiful girl with long white wavy hair waves at him, face turned up into a pretty smile. “Welcome to Coran’s Diner! Take a seat and I’ll be with you in a minute.” He nods and chooses a booth hidden away in a corner on the other side of the diner.

Unceremoniously, he drops onto the seat, the red leather crinkling under his weight. Veronica sits across from him, somehow resting both hands on the dark smooth wooden table. Close to him rests an old jukebox, glowing brightly and shifting between different colors. and he suddenly has the very strong urge to play “What’s New Pussycat?”.

The white-haired lady walks towards him, taking a pencil and small notebook out from her apron pocket. “Hi, I’m Allura, how’s your day been?” She says, voice sickly sweet and thick with that fake customer service personality. He remembers his time using that exact voice very well back when he worked at a shoe store during high school.

“Oh uh, good, it’s been good. How bout you?”

“My day has been great, thank you for asking. Now have you decided on what you’d like or do you need some more time?”

“Uh…”

“Milkshake! Get a milkshake. Get a milkshake. Get a milkshake,” Veronica chants, hands pounding on the table but creating no noise or movement.

“A strawberry milkshake and cheeseburger with fries.”

He used to get that all the time when they came here, he swore up and down to all his friend that Coran’s Diner in smalltown Arus has the very best cheeseburgers in the entire world. Honestly, it’s been a while but if memory serves him correctly then even after all these years he still stands by that.

“Great choice, it’s my godfather’s personal recipe and believe me, it is delicious,” She says, writing down his order.

“Oh cool, thanks.”

She leaves and he pulls out his phone, bringing up a random stupid game where you move brightly colored shapes around to match them with each other so they can explode and he can empty out the board.

“Lance, shame on you! No phones at the table, remember?” Veronica says with a smirk.

Sighing, he drops his phone which clatters against the table with a loud thudding noise. This is Veronica’s revenge for every time he got her in trouble with mama for texting during dinner. He even got her grounded a couple of times but in his defense, she was the one who kept trying to sneakily use her phone.

“Karma,” she says in a lilting sing-song voice, tone rising and falling.

“Yeah, yeah.”

His phone starts to ring, vibrating and buzzing against the table, noise amplified by the wood. Veronica leans forward to get a good look at the screen. Whatever she sees makes her frown. “It’s Rachel.”

Oh.

Lance reaches forward and turns off the volume, earning a sorrowful look from Veronica. He decides he doesn’t want to look at her and her disappointment, doesn’t want to watch his phone shake and flash the picture of Rachel he took last summer. He positions his body away, twisting to the right and leaning against the wall, forehead pressed up against the cool window.

Outside, the grass and trees flutter in the wind. Branches and leaves dancing in the air, being blown up and down. Pretty flower blossoms fly high up above, riding the windy waves. It’s a torrent red, pink, purple, yellow and so many other colors.

It makes him miss his mama’s garden that has all the most beautiful flowers and plants, and the tastiest herbs and spices. Tall trees that he can climb and pick the fruit out of. He has so many childhood memories involving that garden. Coming home from a long day at school to find mama working hard in the garden, helping her weed for hours, and getting yelled at countless times for stepping on one of her beloved plants.

Maybe he should pick up gardening. He has lots of practice because of mama and god knows he has the time for it. He’s sure Veronica would like it if he started doing something other than writing and he could probably use a new hobby.

Outside walks a man with white hair and idly he wonders if he’s related to Allura since the both of them have matching luscious white hair, he’s almost jealous how nice their hair is. It looks so soft and he kinda wants to braid it. Allura seems chill, maybe she’d let him.

The man enters the diner, taking a seat at a table eight booths away and Lance decides to stop staring lest he ends up looking like a creep.

“You’re going to have to talk to her sometime, you know,” Veronica says, interrupting his thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“Rachel,” she says, effectively ruining the sliver of a good mood he’d managed to catch. “You can’t just keep ignoring her. You’ll have to face her eventually.”

“Says you,” he says, refusing to look at her even if it’s childish and immature.

“She’s not going to stop calling.”

“I don’t care. I’ll just keep ignoring her.”

“Oh come on, you know Rach, she’s just gonna show up and demand you talk to her,” Veronica says and he knows she’s right. His twin is a force to be reckoned with and she is not to be ignored. She can’t be controlled. For their seventh birthday, she managed to open every single one of their presents and rewrap them perfectly without their parents ever finding out. She also hung off a chandelier that day but she’s done that loads of times, the present thing was much more impressive.

“I don’t think she’d do that,” he says, picking up the little glass container of salt and spinning it softly, making the sparkling salt swirl around in little circles.

“She’s having a really hard time, Lance. Whenever I visit home, she’s just so… despondent. You two used to be inseparable, she misses you. A phone call won’t kill you.”

“I can’t, Ronnie… I just can’t.”

She sighs. “Okay.”

She doesn’t say anything else and neither does he. It creates an awkward silence and a stifling atmosphere. He hates this feeling, this ambiance. It makes him want to stand up and shout, kill that uncomfortable mood with a baseball bat. He’s always felt like he had to do that, to be the one to make thing less awkward, to make sure everyone is happy. It’s why he always played the class clown back when he was in school.

Luckily he doesn’t have to do anything because Allura is suddenly back, placing a beige plate in front of him with the biggest cheeseburger he’s ever seen surrounded by more than enough fries. His stomach growls and rumbles, reminding him that he hasn’t eaten anything today. Allura smiles politely and doesn’t anything, putting a bright pastel food coloring pink milkshake in a tall thin glass next to the food. He absentmindedly plays with the long sky blue and white striped straw.

“Enjoy your meal.”

She leaves, heading back over to the counter and organizing some menus. He wastes no time digging in and talking as big of a bite as he can, mouth full, mustard dripping down his chin and grease spilling on his hands.

He lets out a pleased hum and Veronica slumps over. “God, I miss eating.”

He pauses, slowly lowering the burger, desperate need to stuff his face fading away and being replaced with concern. He’s seen what can happen to ghost when they get depressed and angry, too upset about being dead. He couldn’t live if that happened to Veronica.

“You okay?”

“Yes, of course! Now keep eating so I can live vicariously through you.”

He shrugs and continues his meal, probably eating like a pig if Veronica’s expression is anything to go by. As he eats, he can’t help but notice that the man with white hair is staring intently in his direction. Lance tips his body to the left to see if the man’s eyes follow him.

They do.

Which is more than creepy but also probably doesn’t really mean anything. He could just be staring off into space, something Lance has done on multiple occasions or maybe he’s just being a bitch and judging Lance for behaving like a wild animal.

Right when his mouth is full of crispy fries, a tall buff man wearing an apron and covered in flour comes in from the kitchen, saying something to Allura before looking over at him. Veronica’s face scrunches up in confusion as the guy’s eyes widen in what Lance thinks is shock.

“Yo, is that Hunk?” She asks.

“Lance, is that you?” He asks, already walking forward.

“Yep, it’s definitely Hunk,” Veronica says, shifting to sit on her knees and straining her neck over the booth the get a good look at him.

“Oh, hey man, long time no see,” Lance says, grabbing a napkin and wiping at his face to make sure he hasn’t gotten anything on it. It comes back with a small blob of ketchup but Lance supposes that it could’ve been worse.

“Yeah, no kidding, I haven’t seen you in ages,” Hunk says, smiling wide and showing off all his shiny white teeth. He sits down right across from Lance, phasing through Veronica and stealing her seat right from under her. She reappears next to Lance with a grumpy glare but is otherwise fine. “How are you been, buddy?”

“Oh… um, I’m fine. Nothing much to report on.”

“What about the family? How are they? How’s Veronica?” Lance freezes, body going to stiff. Hunk doesn’t know and Lance is just so tired of talking about it and what happened.

His eyes wander over to where Veronica sits, fingers tapping against the table in a silent motion. “Uh… she’s good.”

“That’s fantastic, so glad to hear it!” He says and Lance is reminded how much he loves Hunk. He’s just an all-around loveable dude. He’s fun and kind and you just can’t help like him and when Lance was younger he considered Hunk his best friend. He wonders if that still stands. He doubts it. It’s been two years since he’s seen him last and Lance is a different person. Hunk probably wouldn’t want to be around him anymore.

"So, what about you? How’s life? What’s been going on in the life of Hunk?” Lance asks, trying to act and sound at least a little bit more like he used to.

“Oh, things have been going pretty great. I’m majoring in engineering, working here parttime. And… oh! I finally asked out Shay! We’ve been together for six months now.”

“Wow man, that’s amazing, congratulations. I knew you two would be great together,” Lance says, the smile on his face one hundred percent real.

“Can’t believe he finally worked up the courage to ask her. I totally didn’t think he had the balls,” Veronica says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know you and Pidge told me so.”

Now THAT is a name he hasn’t heard in a long time. The three of them were inseparable as kids. He had lots of friends back in his hometown, only a few of them being ghosts but he was always closest with Hunk and Pidge. “How is the little gremlin anyway?”

“She’s the same, causing mayhem and chaos like usual. And she got another dog!” Hunk says, spreading his arms and gesturing wildly as he talks.

“Oh awesome, tell me everything,” he says.

“His name is Rover and she found him in the trash. Bebe and he have become furry little best friends and it is literally one of the cutest things I have seen in my entire life. We have to hang out sometime so I can show you,” Hunk says, pausing before jumping back up excitedly. “Also, you’re never going to believe this but Pidge has already graduated, she’s in college!”

“Wait really? But she’s only seventeen!” Lance says, absolutely gobsmacked but even more impressed. He always knew she was destined for great things.

“Yeah, I know right! She terrifies me a little bit, to be honest. I feel like she could take over the world if she wanted to.”

“Oh, she definitely could,” Lance says.

“I think she’d make a great serial killer,” Veronica adds helpfully.

The door opens, slamming loudly against the wall and in comes the blonde girl from earlier, the ghost still following her. She lets the pile of papers she was carrying drop onto the counter before she takes a seat at the bar on one of the stools.

Allura immediately rushes over, pulling the girl into a hug and whispering something in her ear. The girl crumbles in her arms and Lance realizes she’s crying. A sharp pain stabs into his chest as he watches this poor girl lose it.

Hunk notices that he’s lost Lance’s attention and turns to get a look at what he’s staring at. “Oh, that’s Romelle. Things are really tough for her right now. Her little brother, Bandor went missing. He’s the same age as Pidge. It’s really freaky. I hope he’s all right.”

“That’s terrible,” Lance says as he literally looks at where Bandor stands.

“Yeah… I know it’s a really dark and awkward place to end this conversation but I’ve got to get back to work,” Hunk says before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his cellphone. “Gimme your number and I’ll text you later, ‘kay?”

“Cool, sounds good,” Lance says, taking the phone with the bright orange phone case and quickly imputing his number. Guess it’s a good thing Veronica refused to stop screaming his number until he memorized it. It made him want to kill her at the time but it’s worked out.

Hunk gives him a hug, patting his back twice before leaving, heading back to the kitchen. Lance returns to his meal in a good mood and a smile on his face.

“So that was nice,” Veronica says right when he’s in the middle of sucking up a mouthful of strawberry milkshake. “I think it’d be really good for you if you hung out with someone other than me and Abuelo.”

Groaning, he says, “I don’t need a lecture right now, Ronnie.” He rolls his eyes and unfortunately makes eye contact with the red-haired ghost that he now knows is named Bandor. The boy’s eyes widen and Lance rapidly looks away, panic slamming into him like a truck.

The boy appears in front of him, arms crossed and eyes narrowed in suspicion. Lance can’t do this again, he can’t have another person follow him around everywhere he goes, demanding that he solve all their problems.

It’s gone horribly wrong every single time. After he doesn’t immediately give them whatever they want, they’ll begin threatening him and making his life a living hell.

Lance keeps his eyes glued to his meal. Hands shaking, he picks up his burger and takes another bite. Lance’s heartbeat is hammering in his ears and he’s sure Bandor can hear it. He just needs to finish his meal and get out of here and then it’ll be okay.

“What’s your name?” Bandor asks and Lance peeks up at him through his eyelashes, praying to every god that Bandor doesn’t notice him looking.

Bandor isn’t looking at him though, he’s looking at Veronica who seems surprised to the fact someone other than Lance has addressed her. Please don’t say anything, Veronica, please don’t say anything.

“Veronica.”

“I’m Bandor.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “Someone was just telling my brother all about you.”

“He can see us, can’t he?”

Lance pushes himself up, springing to his feet in a crazed frenzy, racing towards Allura. “Hey, how much do I owe you?”

“Wait! Please don’t go! I need your help!” Bandor shouts, chasing after him.

Allura says, “Hey, give me a second. I need to get something from the back but then I’ll pull up your bill, okay?” she says and then she’s gone and Lance is left to wait with the ghost.

“Please stop ignoring me, this is serious,” Bandor screams, trying to grab onto Lance but only phasing through him. Lance violently shivers when the familiar cold wave washes over him, freezing his blood and insides, making his bones ache and hard to move.

“You have to help me!”

“Not now!” Lance whispers, teeth clenched and eyes darting around to make sure no one noticed him talking to nothing.

Right then the white-haired man joins them at the bar, standing several feet away.

“Him!” The boy shouts, pointing over at the man, “He’s the one that killed me!”

Everything stops.

Lance stiffens, hands clasping into fists, breath coming out unevenly. Sweat drips down his forehead, his throat and mouth become painfully dry and he can hear his blood rushing powerfully through his veins and in his ears.

There’s a high ringing sound that pierces his ears and into his brain, shutting off any and all coherent thought.

In bright florescent lights, the word danger flashes in his mind.

“Lance,” Veronica says, voice quavering in fear. “Leave! Leave now, Lance! Get out of here! Get out right now!”

Allura comes back out and he clumsily hands her a twenty. “Oh, this is way too much. Your bill only came up to about thirteen bucks.”

“It’s fine, keep it,” he says, voice a choked up rasp but he doesn’t care, already hightailing it out of there as fast as he can.

Before the door slams shut behind him, he hears the man’s voice, hears him speaking to Allura. “Hiya, princess.”

He hears Allura sigh and say, "Hello, Lotor."

Then the door is closed and he's running, guilt strong when realizes that he just left Allura and Hunk and Romelle and who else knows with a fucking murderer. What if he does something to them? He doubts it, the diner is a public place and if he does pull anything then he’ll definitely get arrested. Plus aren’t most murders like a one-time deal thing? Like most of the time, it’s cause some people got into a fight and it ended badly right?

Unless… he’s a serial killer.

Lance doesn’t slow down when he reaches Blue, ramming his body against the truck and fumbling with his keys, dropping them twice until he finally manages to get inside. He locks the doors, pushing the button over and over and over again just to really make sure that it’s locked.

He grips the steering wheel tightly as he turns out of the parking lot, driving at the highest possible speed he can without getting a ticket. Once he’s locked in his car and speeding away, his heart stops jackhammering and he can actually breathe without a heavy weight on his chest making it seem like he’s going to have a panic attack.

“You okay?” Veronica asks from the passenger seat.

“Not remotely but I will be.”

“Lucky,” a voice from the backseat says, causing Lance to screech and practically jump out of his own skin. Eyes flicker up towards the rearview mirror to find Bandor sitting there, acting all casual and like he didn’t just terrify Lance after he encountered a freaking murderer! “I’m not okay and I’m not gonna be since I’m, you know dead.”

“Don’t do that!” Lance screams.

“Okay, sorry, jeez,” Bandor says.

“So… I guess we’ve made a new friend,” Veronica says, tone high and teasing.

Lance groans, banging his head against the headrest. Things just got so much more complicated. Now he has to deal with a young ghost, the younger the ghost, the most likely that they’re going to behave violently and irrationally. And not only is he dealing with a new ghost, but that ghost also got fucking murdered. Most ghosts have a terribly sad and tragic reason for sticking around but murder is on a whole other level. A level Lance is not remotely prepared to deal with.

Oh god, things are so fucked.

Veronica and Bandor talk, exchanging pleasantries and learning more about each other but Lance stays quiet. He doesn’t feel like talking and it’s not like he has anything to say anyway. Lance just puts all of his attention on focusing on what’s in front of him, focusing on the road, on getting home. He reads every roadsign they pass, pushing his brain to read instead of think.

As he parks in the cabin driveway, a strong feeling of instant relief hits him. All the stress coiled in his muscles lets go and he slumps down in his seat, taking a moment just to breathe. Sluggishly, he gets out of the car, letting himself into the house to find Abuelo sitting on the couch, watching the tv. Abuelo has gotten really good at using just enough energy to accomplish small tasks, like turning on the tv or changing the channel.

Abuelo turns his head when he hears them come in, confusion writing across his face when he sees Bandor. “And who is this?”

“This is Bandor. Abuelo, Bandor. Bandor, Abuelo,” Veronica says, gesturing between the two of them.

“Well, I’d say it’s becoming quite a party we have here,” Abuelo says, smiling fondly.

Lance nods tiredly, "I'm going to bed."  
  
"Uh, don't you think we should deal with recent developement?" Veronica asks, head pointedly tilting towards Bandor.

"Tomorrow," Lance says, "We'll handle it tomorrow but I can't right now. I'm... just really tired."

Veronica frowns and he knows he's only made her even more worried. "Okay Lance, go get some rest."

He escapes down into the hallway and towards his room, immediately yanking his shirt over his head and changing into his comfy pajamas. It takes him all of one minute before he's collapsing onto his bed and curling up into a ball. He wraps all of the blankets around him, creating a comforting little cacoon. He hugs his arms to his chest and squeezes his eyes shut tightly, almost able to pretend that the world stops. 

It’s okay now, he’s safe here. The cabin is safe and far away from everybody.

Abuelo is here and so is Veronica and they care about him, they’ll watch out for him. And together they figure out what they need to do. It’ll be okay.

 

* * *

 

Lance is exhausted.

Legs shaking, barely standing on his own.

He doesn’t know where he is, cuts and scratches spread around up and down his arms and legs. Rocks and gravel slicing up his feet. He stands next to a red brick building on his left and in front of him is an old rusty chain link fence.

The night sky is a dark inky color that engulfs the entire world, little patches of bright stars shining hidden in the void.

Scorching heat blaring down on him, making the air around him warm and dense and hard to breathe. His eyes sting and stomach curdles. The smell of rotting flesh made so much worse by the heat. He stands in a puddle of blood that splashes up on his legs, staining his shorts.

He… he needs to do something.

Lance pats his pockets up and down, searching for anything, pulls out his phone, pausing to stare at the new cracks across the screen. Those… weren’t there this morning.

He dials Nine-one-one.

Maybe they’ll know where he is and why he’s standing next to Bandor’s dead body.


	2. Chapter 2

[Keith’s P.O.V]

 

Red and blue lights swirl lazily above him. He shifts uncomfortably in the old leather seat that has long gone soft from use. He leans back, raising his arms and using them as a pillow behind his head, stretches his legs and crosses his ankles. 

He lets out a loud long unending yawn, eyes watering and getting sleepier by the minute. He spent all day running around in circles dealing with small boring disturbances and now late at night, he’s parked his cruiser on the side of a road, waiting for speeders. He’s been sat here for over an hour, fingers twitching and body fidgeting. Eyes often returning to the little clock on his dashboard that seems to be getting slower. 

Maybe it’s broken. 

He reaches forward, turning his hand into a fist and knocking against in to see if anything changes. It doesn’t, it just keeps ticking onward, causing him to sigh. Okay, not broken then.

Time feels like a pool of sludge, melting and sticking to him, holding him in place. The journey through the muck is long and tedious but eventually, his radio crackles on and his sergeant, Shiro’s voice comes floating through. “Keith, you’re parked at Juniberry gardens, right?” 

He switches his radio on. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Got a 10-54 on Stake Lane,” Possible dead body. “Probably just some kid playing a prank but go check it out.” 

“On my way,” he says, adjusting himself to sit up the straight which funnily enough is the only straight thing about him. He laughs quietly to himself at his stupid joke as he turns the key he had left in the ignition, starting up the car with a roar.

He flips on the siren and grips his steering wheel, turning left and heading down towards the strange road with no street lamps and that has a total of six potholes known as Stake Lane. A fitting name he thinks.

Shiro is right when he says that it’s probably just a stupid prank. They get calls like these all the time. They get calls like these so much that Keith is already theorizing on who did it. Considering all the other times, it’s probably James Griffin or maybe Nyma and Rolo. It could be his good friend Pidge, she’s been known to pull shit like this when she’s particularly sleep-deprived and bored. He hopes it isn’t her. He really doesn’t want to have to arrest her again. 

All those prank calls are the only reason Shiro is even sending a rookie like Keith out on such a serious call. At least he gets to do something other than sitting and waiting, he just hopes he doesn’t have to deal with Griffin. He’ll probably end up abusing his power as a cop or even locked in a cell himself. Shiro would never let him hear the end of it.

The drive doesn’t take long, he was only about a block away. How something as beautiful as the Juniberry gardens is so close to Stake Lance, he’ll never know. Though it’s not like much of this city makes any sense, it’s just one of those places where people just did whatever they wanted, really letting their creative juices flow when building. Honestly, that’s exactly what he likes about Arus, it’s his kinda place. It’s where he belongs, fits right in. 

He parks by the curb, right around the corner from Stake Lane. Slipping out of the door without a sound, he dusts off his uniform, wiping off the crumbs from a Tuna sandwich he had a couple of hours ago. His footsteps echoing quietly into the night. 

As he gets closer, a strong disgusting odor hits him, flooding into his nostrils, overwhelming all of his senses. His stomach flips and he suddenly really seriously regrets that sandwich. He can hear faint breathing. 

“Is somebody there?” Keith asks. 

“Hi,” A soft voice says across from Keith and he turns to see a boy sitting on the ground and hugging his knees to his chest, back pressed up against the brick building. Keith can feel his face morph, shifting to show his shock. The boy (a very handsome boy) is barefoot and wearing a pair of baggy blue pajamas, his hair is messy and lopsided. At first glance, he looks like he just got out of bed. 

Then Keith notices some of the finer details, the dirt and mud that cakes his skin. His face is stained with tear tracks, eyes and face a feverish red. 

The bottoms of his pants are a tie-dye of dark crimson red splashes.

Blood. His mind notes. The boy’s pants are soaked with blood. 

“Do… do you need help?” 

The boy lets out an empty raspy laugh. “I mean, technically?” 

“What is the emergency?” Keith asks, channeling his inner Shiro, mature and professional. 

The boy lifts a shaking hand and points behind him and around the wall that he’s leaning up against. “I didn’t want to look at it anymore but it felt wrong to go too far.” 

Dread ripples through his entire body, through his veins, through his bones and his organs. It hits his gut and like a woodpecker, slams against it over and over again. His nerves like a bolt of lightning, burning him up inside. 

Something is seriously wrong. 

The boy has stopped looking on him, eyes glossy and he doesn’t seem able to concentrate on anything. He stares off into space, eyes wandering, exploring the air around Keith, following something. Maybe he’s watching a bug. 

Keith rips his own eyes away from the boy and focuses his attention to where the boy pointed. Clipping his flashlight off his belt and flicking it on, he very slowly and carefully creeps forward, eyes wide and stance prepared. Logically he knows that the chances of something dangerous being on the other side of this wall is slim especially with the boy seemingly unharmed.

The flashlight shines into the dark alleyway, lighting it up and Keith gags. 

On the cracked and crumbled asphalt lays the broken body of a boy. The chest has caved in, countless oozing wounds decorate his grey sagging skin, organs spilling out and onto the street. Where the eyes are supposed to be has been replaced with two deep empty burned holes. The temple on the right of the forehead has been crushed, leaving a huge gaping dent in the skull.

Keith has never seen anything like this. 

The worst thing is Keith thinks that he might know who it is.

The hair, while matted with blood and bits and chunks have been ripped out, is the right color. Romelle Pollux is more Allura’s friend than his but he’s hung out with her loads of times, Allura bringing her almost everywhere with her. And sometimes a red-haired teenage boy trails after Romelle. Keith has never spoken to him but he knows of him. His name is Bandor and he went missing last week. It’s why he’s hardly seen Allura lately because she’s been helping Romelle search. 

Keith reaches for the button on his radio, gently tapping his pointer finger against it to click it on. “Hey, Shiro? I’m gonna need backup. It wasn’t a prank.” 

“Oh my god, we’ll be there soon.”

He stands there for another moment, eyes glued to the gory macabre scene in front of him. It hits him suddenly that he doesn’t think anything in this town will ever be the same. The world has been flipped upside down. Sweet sweet Romelle is going to be devastated. And god, he was so young, the same as Pidge who is so small and who he’d destroy anyone that hurt her, beat them until they’re a bloody mess on the floor.

Everyone in town is going to freak the fuck out, it’ll be a complete shitshow. And god, who could have done this? Surely not someone that lives here? Nothing like this has ever happened before. Though it’s not like that really changes anything, people snap all the time. But still, he can’t imagine any of the people who actually live here doing something like this. Not even the biggest troublemakers, not even those he hates so much. 

And people are going to be scared and paranoid.

Speaking of scared people, Keith is suddenly reminded of the boy curled up on the ground and probably terrified out of his mind from seeing a sight like this. Keith forces himself to look away, pushes his body to move. 

The boy is right where Keith left him, head sagging against the wall. Now, this is probably the part of his job that Keith is the worst at. Keith is not good with people, he doesn’t understand how they work and it’s had him ending up in thousands of misunderstandings and fights. 

Keith looks over the boy, he isn’t covered in much blood except for his pants and Keith assumes that he must’ve stepped in the gory mess. His hands are clean except for dirt which makes Keith feel that the boy probably didn’t have anything to do with the act of violence himself. Most likely, the boy is probably the one who found the body and called the police.

Slowly, as if approaching a wild animal, he gets closer and kneels down in front of him. Keith does his best to look kind and non-threatening. “Hey, are you hurt?” 

He shakes his head, shiny light brown locks falling into his wide foggy cerulean eyes that stare down at his feet. “Did you see it?” He asks, voice tired and teardrops glittering on his eyelashes. 

“Yeah, I saw it,” Keith says, eyes scanning the boy for injuries despite him saying he was fine. He notices cuts and scrapes carved into the bottom of the boy’s feet. Doesn’t look serious, just seems like something that he got from walking around barefoot. Which makes Keith wonder why he is barefoot. 

“Oh… well, at least I’m not seeing things,” he says, lips twitching upwards with a little chuckle, somehow finding something amusing in that sentence. 

“Uh, I’m Keith, what’s your name?” 

“Lance.”

“Nice name, now can you... tell me how you feel?” Keith asks and Lance finally looks up, giving Keith a better look at his face and those surprising eyes. 

“I think I’m in shock,” Lance informs him, tone far off and dreamy but sure. “I feel just like how Ronnie described.” 

“Well, don’t worry, more help is coming,” Keith says. 

“Cool,” Lance says, voice a quiet muffled murmur, eyelids dropping closed before prying themselves back up, only for him to blink slower and slower, body wracked with chills. Keith should probably get him out of the cold, away from the horror that is only a few feet away from them. 

“Let’s get you out of here now,” Keith says, rising to his feet and offering Lance an outstretched hand. 

Lance tilts his head, hair shifting with the movement. Mouth open as he dazedly stares at Keith’s hand. Slowly as if he’s confused or worried that Keith will attack him, he reaches out, softly taking Keith’s hand. Lance’s long trembling fingers wrap around his own in a tight grip. 

Clumsily Lance pushes himself away from the wall and Keith gently helps him up. Lance’s ankle brushes against Keith’s boot, creating a dark smear across the black leather. Lance sways on his feet and Keith snakes an arm around his waist, trying to keep him upright, hand never leaving his. 

Keith leads him away, towards his cruiser. Lance trips and stumbles, bare feet catching on loose stones, but Keith holds on and carefully guides him out of the alley. He places Lance propped up against the car, leaving blood and dirt on the white paint wherever he touches. Keith presses the button his keys, unlocking the car and gingerly helping Lance sit down in the backseat, leather seats squeaking. 

Keith leaves Lance hunched over in the back, arms wrapped around his stomach and blue eyes blinking slowly up at the beige car roof. He opens the trunk, arms swinging as he lifts the door open. Inside is various objects but he chooses to ignore most, taking out a water bottle and the old grey scratchy blanket that has never been used and therefore has a slight old musty scent to it. It will have to do. 

He shuts the trunk closed with a loud bang, head shooting up to peer in through the window to make sure Lance was disturbed by the noise. Surprisingly he finds Lance curiously watching him, eyes following him when he moves. 

Keith sits himself down in the front seat, twisting to face Lance. He wraps the blanket around Lance’s shoulders, bundling him up like a parent would to a small child. Lance smiles at him, a soft small smile, eyes shining and murky in his haze. He reaches up, fingers curling around the blanket, making a quiet scraping noise when his nails dig in. 

Keith grabs the water bottle out of his lap, twisting the cap off and holding it out to Lance. “You should drink something,” he says, dragging Lance’s attention down to the water bottle. His eyebrows furrow, taking a long moment to simply just look at it. 

His lips purse together. “Oh,” he says, taking the bottle from Keith, clutching the plastic firmly, causing it to bend and crinkle. He takes a few sips but Keith thinks he spills more thank he actually drinks. It dribbles out of his mouth and down his chin, spilling down his neck in little drops to soak the neckline of his shirt. 

“You’re sweet even though you have ugly hair,” Lance says. 

Keith is about to protest, prepared to defend himself but apparently, the little bit of water he drank is enough for Lance as he is already handing the plastic bottle back to Keith who takes it, screwing the lid back on. He drops the water bottle in his cup holder, hoping Lance will be willing to drink some more later. 

When he looks back at Lance, his eyes are closed. “How are you doing?” Keith asks.

“I’m okay,” Lance says, rubbing the back of his hand across his face. “It’s not the first dead body I’ve seen.” Then Lance is yawning and lying down, draping himself across the backseat, dragging his feet up under him and curling up into a ball. The faded blanket sprawled out over him, bunched up and folded in random areas, the edges frayed but he’s still wrapped up and managing to look quite comfortable. 

Keith pauses, trying to make sense of the words this boy has just said, his face distorts but to what sort of expression he’s not sure. He imagines that it’s probably shock or confusion or maybe worry since those are all emotions he is feeling right now. 

Keith was not remotely expecting the conversation to take this turn. He didn’t think the simple question of asking how Lance was doing would lead to something like this. He figured that Lance would just lie and say he’s okay or maybe Keith would get lucky and hear how Lance is really doing, if he was afraid or feeling any sort of panic.

He tries to think of something to say, find the right words to comfort this stranger but Keith doesn’t know anything so his mouth stays shut, like glue coats his lips and forces him uselessly silent. 

He can hear sirens in the distance, getting closer and closer and Keith has never felt such a strong sense of relief. Backup is almost here which means Shiro is almost here. He’ll know what to do, he always does. 

Lance burrows deeper into the blanket, burying his face and squeezing his body into an even tighter ball. His voice, quiet and faint, muffled from under the blanket. “Want Veronica.” Keith gets the feeling that Lance hadn’t meant for him to hear. That those hushed words were meant for Lance and Lance only. Even though he knows that it’s none of his business, he can’t help but wonder just who Veronica is. And why in a horrible moment where Lance has seen something that Keith is sure has traumatized him is she the one he wants, the one he calls for? Keith is sure that the two of them must be close, that he must trust her.

Red and blue lights flash, several cars driving up the road, parking next to Keith’s cruiser. His coworkers let themselves out of their cars and Keith finds himself sighing, the stress in his bones letting go when he sees a familiar puff of black hair. 

“Oh thank god,” he says, crawling out and softly closing the door behind him to not disturb Lance who he thinks has fallen asleep. He practically runs over to Shiro, wanting to be near his brother. 

“Keith, you all right?” Shiro asks, concern evident in his tone and at any other time, Keith would probably roll his eyes but not now. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“Not buying that very obvious lie but moving on, tell me about what we’ve got here,” Shiro says, looking around them, grey eyes catching on the slumbering boy in Keith’s backseat. He’s clearly on edge, body tightly wound from nerves. Keith can’t really blame him for his caution, they’re in uncharted territory here, none of them quite sure what to do. 

“Uh, you’re gonna want to prepare yourself, Shiro. It’s really bad,” Keith says, poking the toes of his boot into the asphalt. “There… is a body and I think that it’s Bandor Pollux.” 

Shiro’s skin turns pale, the blood draining from his face. “A-are you sure?” 

“No, he’s uh… he’s pretty messed up. Whatever happened was definitely not an accident.”  
With each word, Shiro seems more and more horrified, jaw dropped, eyes wide. He brushes his fingers through his hair and rubbing it down his face, breathing heavily and Keith thinks he’s taking a moment to process what’s happening. “Okay, who’s the kid in your car?” 

“Says his name is Lance, I think he’s the one who found the body, he’s pretty shaken up by it,” Keith says, looking over to where Lance rests. 

“You sure he’s the one who found him and not the one who did it?” Shiro asks, warily. 

He knew Shiro was going to say that but Keith knows that he’s wrong. He can feel it in his gut and his gut is almost never wrong. There’s something about Lance that makes Keith sure that Lance couldn’t have done something like this. He feels really quite strong about it, to be honest, but he keeps his tone neutral to appease Shiro. “Don’t think so, no defensive wounds or weapons and if he’d done it, he would have been covered in a lot of blood. Plus, he seemed terrified.” 

Shiro lets out a little hum to acknowledge Keith’s word. He then takes a step forward, “Suppose it’s time I see the body.” 

“Right,” Keith says, obvious disdain in his voice. Even though every bone in his body screams for him not to go back down that dark alley, he leads Shiro down there anyway. The walk feels both like a short split second and a long eternity. Really, it only lasted a simple minute. 

Shiro jerks when he sees it, a loud gasp bursting passed his lips, hand coming up to cover his mouth in horror. “My god,” he says, voice cutting off with a choked noise. Behind them, of the other officers coughs, skin green and hand clapping over his mouth, holding back a mouthful of puke. Yeah, Keith feels pretty similar.

“His poor family,” Shiro says. 

“They’re going to be heartbroken. I can’t even imagine how Romelle is going to take it. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing you really ever get over.” That draws silence, the two of them both unable to stop their brains from thinking too deeply, imagining sweet and silly Romelle. He finds himself wondering if she’ll ever be the same.

“We have to tell Captain Kolivan,” Shiro says and Keith nods, agreeing wholeheartedly. 

“Yeah,” Keith says, patting Shiro’s shoulder. “Have fun with that.” 

Shiro groans, letting his head drop backward, eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, that is a conversation I am not looking forward to.” 

Keith nod, tone sympathetic, “Yeah, if we thought he was strict before, I can’t imagine what he’s going to be like now.” 

Captain Kolivan is a strict pragmatic man with a love of rules and classic literature. He’s worked for the force for over thirty years and is one of the most respected men in town. Underneath his cold professional exterior is a kind almost caring personality that very few people actually get to see. He always says that his true purpose in life is to take care of others, to keep them safe. 

He can also be fucking terrifying when he wants to, he is the type of person you do not want mad at you. His tone will shift from calm and monotone to harsh and sharp, words acting like knives and cutting deeply. And the way his eyes watch you when he’s angry, sending chills and pinches across your skin. It freezes you where you stand, makes you afraid to move as if any little movement will be the wrong thing and used against you. 

He’s a bit of an enigma, someone hard to understand.

Keith is lucky to work for him, though he certainly doesn’t always feel like that. Especially days when Kolivan sends him out on a particularly boring or annoying job. Or when he’s getting on Keith’s case about keeping his emotions in check and staying objective during work. Not like he doesn’t hear that lecture enough from Shiro. Yeah, yeah, patience yields focus, he’s heard it a thousand times, let’s not make it a thousand and one.

Shiro looks over at him, a scowl on his face and for a second Keith actually genuinely believes that Shiro has gained telepathic abilities and knows exactly where Keith’s thoughts have gone but instead of launching into another lecture, he just says, “We need to secure the scene. You handle the boy, keep an eye on him, we still know nothing about him. And you,” Shiro says, turning to the closest officer. “We’re going to need forensics here.” She nods and runs off, already pulling out her radio and gesturing at three other officers. 

The rest of them begin their work, Keith heading back to his car to find the backseat door open and Lance looking around, blinking sleepily while being helped out of the car by Matt. Keith pulls himself to a stop, surprised to see the Holt here and away from his computer, the main part of his job. Though to be honest, Keith is exactly sure what it is that Matt does. It’s definitely something to with computers.

“Did you check him for injuries?” He asks when he sees Keith. 

“Not thoroughly,” Keith says and Matt gives a firm nod, gently patting along Lance’s body in search for any hidden wounds. 

“Can I go home now?” Lance asks, voice a mere croaky puff of air.

“Not yet,” Matt says, voice a soft serene tone that is usually reserved for Pidge. It’s honestly a bit of shock hearing it now since Keith has never seen him use it on anyone else.

He speaks in a deep soothing rumble, whispering kind words of comfort into Lance’s ear, explaining what he’s doing and what’s happening as he works. Lance mostly stays quiet, body violently shivering and jolting, little whimpers or groans escaping his mouth every once in a while. He stares off past Keith, over his shoulder, at nothing in particular. Lance’s eyes are dull, tired and empty, red-rimmed and wrinkled. He’s limp and pliant, letting Matt push and tug him around. 

“All right, no life-threatening injuries but his feet are torn to hell. How far did he walk barefoot?” Matt says, pulling away from Lance, he leaves him with Antok who attempts to ask him some questions but by the looks of if it isn’t going to have much success. Matt turns to face Keith, glasses sliding down his nose an inch or two, “Who even is this kid? He looks familiar but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“Weird. You think he’s new to town?” Matt asks. 

“Could be, might be a college kid,” Keith says. Arus is a pretty small town, everyone has at least a faint idea who is who. But there are always large batches of people migrating through town to go to Altea University and it’s not like anyone actually living here ever really bothers to keep track of any of the college kids. There’s too many of them and they’ll probably be gone in a few years anyway, only coming here because of how good of a school Altea is. Allura’s great great grandfather really knew what he was doing when he decided to open up a college. 

“Maybe, though doesn’t exactly help his case.”

“What do you mean?”

“When this gets out, it’s going to be chaos and what do think the public is going to be more willing to believe? That one of their own did this or that it was some college kid from outta town?” Matt asks, head tilted and expression cocky, lips curled up in a smirk.

“I don’t think he did it,” Keith says. 

“Neither do I but that doesn’t change the fact that everyone else is going to.” That makes Keith pause, he hates to admit it but Matt’s got a point. Lance is the perfect scapegoat, the perfect one to pin all of this on and put the public at ease. That really sucks, poor guy, his life has just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated. 

Spurring Keith from his thoughts, standing a few feet away Lance lets out a sharp cry, jerking away from Antok, hands flying up to his head to cover his ears. And Keith must be seeing things because for a brief moment, shorter than a second, he swears that those ocean eyes are glowing. But then Lance’s eyes slip closed and when they open back up again, the glow is gone and everything is normal. It was probably just an odd reflection from the moon or the car lights.

Lance slackens in Antok’s grip, the panic from earlier quickly replaced with calm. He seems fine now, much more alert, albeit a little confused.

What… the shit was that? 

As said before, he is not good with people, doesn’t understand them but he’s pretty sure that wasn’t normal. He guesses that it could probably have something to do with the situation but still it seems weird. Lance was doing fine a minute ago, pretty out of it but fine. And then out of nowhere, he freaks out and then he’s just all good? 

Keith does not get people.

“Can you tell me your name?” Antok asks. 

“Lance. Lance Mclain.” 

“Mclain? As in Anton Mclain?”

Lance nods, running his hands over each other in a tight grasp that turns his fingers white. “Yeah, that’s my grandpa. I’m staying at his cabin.” 

“Oh, that’s where I know you from,” Matt shouts, raising his hand and pointing a finger at Lance who turns to look at them, left eyebrow raised. “You’re Pidge’s friend! You and your family used to vacation here all the time. You and Hunk practically lived at our house during those times, it was like the three of you were all attached at the hip.” 

“Oh uh, yeah, that’s me. You’re Matt, right? Pidgey used to talk about you all the time.” Pidgey? Does Pidge know that there’s someone in this world with the actual guts to call her that? Keith can’t imagine she knows, this idiot would already be dead if she did. A wave of festering guilt slams into him, making him dizzy, actually afraid for a moment that he’s going to fall over. He really shouldn’t be joking about death at a time like this. Talk about poor taste. 

“What were you doing here?” Matt asks. 

Lance’s body goes rigid. It’s a small, slim little movement, so minute it’s hardly noticeable but Keith is watching and he sees it. He also notices how seemingly easy it is for Lance to hide, expression a perfect poker face, body forcibly going lax into a false mockery of comfort and relaxation. Nobody else notices except Keith. 

“I was… I was going for a walk.”

“Barefoot? In your pajamas?” Antok asks, incredulous. 

“Didn’t say it was a good decision,” Lance says with a breathy laugh, throwing his shoulders up in a nonchalant shrug or at least that’s what Keith thinks Lance is going for and it works. Lance’s presence right now brings forth a happy airy atmosphere. 

He’d really be quite a good liar if it weren’t for the fact that his lie makes no sense. It’s like he’s putting all his effort into appearing blase but didn’t remotely put any thought into coming up with a good lie. He can’t actually expect them to believe that he went on a walk at one in the morning, dressed in pajamas. Especially after claiming that he’s been staying in a cabin when almost all of the cabins in Arus are on the other side of town.

Does he think they’re stupid? 

Is he stupid? 

Lance is only making things worse for himself, he’s already a suspect whether he realizes it or not and now he’s telling extraordinarily obvious lies. He’s going to end up locked in a cell before he knows it if he continues this strange behavior. 

Keith doesn’t say anything though, neither does Matt or Antok, all of them knowing that it’s smarter to wait rather than call him out on his bullshit right here and now. And even though Lance is clearly lying for some unknown reason, Keith still doesn’t think he’s the one who killed Bandor. He just knows it, his entire being just so incredibly sure.

Okay, now Keith just sounds straight up crazy. He definitely will not be saying anything like that out loud, especially around Matt or Shiro. Matt would laugh at him, tease him for hours and bring it up months later when Keith has completely forgotten about it. Shiro would probably try to send him to therapy or something. Or maybe he’d assume Keith has a new crush and that would hell on earth since Shiro would literally never let him hear the end of it, not caring that he’s wrong and there is not crush. 

Great, now Keith is irrationally mad at Shiro for something he didn’t even do. But he would do it, he would and he’d enjoy it. It would be the perfect revenge for all the time Keith teased him over Adam. But Keith’s teasing was one hundred percent fair game considering how it literally took them an entire year of painful hopeless pining to finally get together. That was a dark time, complete agony for Keith, constantly having to listen to the two of them gush over each other. 

Antok gently takes Lance by the elbow. “Come with me, I’ll take you to the station so we can handle a few other things. Get your full story and such. Then you can go home.”

“Oh, okay,” Lance says before turning to Keith and Matt. “Bye, I guess.” Antok shifts, walking off and Lance follows closely after him. Keith can’t help but flinch inwardly when he thinks about Lance walking despite the fact the bottoms of his feet are all sliced up. It must be killer on his feet but Lance doesn’t react, simply walking to Antok’s car.

A light buzzing in from his pocket distracts him, making him take a step back and reaching down to pull out his cellphone. It’s an older iPhone model with a dented corner and a cracked screen. Pidge hates it with a passion, regularly attempting to steal it so she can upgrade it since it’s apparently an affront to all things good in life.

Speaking of the devil, it’s Pidge that’s calling. Of course, he answers how anyone would to greet a very dear friend. “What do you want?”

“I heard there’s a dead body, is it true?” She asks, excitement and that shining curiosity of hers practically exploding through his phone speakers. 

“Okay, first of all, how?”

“I have my ways.” 

“No seriously, there should absolutely be no way you know anything about that,” he says, tone somehow both serious, annoyance dripping off him in waves and just plain old exasperation. He doesn’t know why he even bothers being surprised anymore. It’s pidge, of course, she knows about something that literally just happened. 

“I can’t tell you. You’ll take it away from me,” she says, sounding like a pouting child which he supposes she technically is. 

“Okay well, I’m standing right next to your brother and I’m giving him the phone so he can handle you,” he says, already pulling the phone away from his ear. Despite that, he can still hear the indignant shriek and the very loud drawn out nooo. Matt simply eyes the phone for a minute, sighs and takes it, immediately launching into a speech about meddling in things she shouldn’t and how she could get into serious trouble. And Keith is relieved, happy that there’s someone else able to put Pidge in her place, someone who isn’t as antisocial as him.

“No, I will not be telling you anything, mind your own business,” Matt says, massaging his temples. “No, this is not your business, you can’t just claim it is. That’s not how this works!”

Keith’s body is tilted away and he’s snickering into his hand, body trembling from the effort to hide his laughter. Though he’s definitely not doing a good enough job since Matt is now glaring at him, forehead creased and crinkled. Matt lets out another sigh. “Pidge wants me to inform you that snitches get stitches, you bitch. And yes, she demanded I say it exactly like that.” 

“Sorry, man,” Keith silently mouths, genuinely apologetic that Matt has to deal with an angry Pidge, she will reign terror down upon you, make you suffer. She will pinpoint all of your weaknesses and use them against you. 

Matt turns his attention back to the phone, groaning at the faint voice Keith can hear. “Pidge, what are you even doing? Don’t you have a test soon, shouldn’t you be studying?” Well, he’s not getting his phone back any time soon. The Holt siblings could argue for centuries, he’s lost many nights of his life to their fights. He’ll probably just get it back in a few hours… or more likely tomorrow because there is no way he’s going to have the time to wait this out.

“Keith!” A voice shouts and he turns to see Shiro leaving the alley and heading towards him. While Shiro seems very tense, body ramrod straight, talking to Shiro is a much better fate than spending an eternity listening to Matt argue and try to corral his small angry sister. So he steps away, waving at Matt and smiling at the agonized expression on his face. Yeah, he feels bad for him but it’s also pretty funny.

“Hey, you need something?”

“Yeah, where’s the kid?” Shiro asks and Keith notes that he’s using his robotic professional voice that he only ever uses in serious situations where he feels that he needs to be closed off. Gone is the kind friendly voice of the man he considers a brother. Not a great sign for the situation. 

“Antok took him to the station,” Keith says, subconsciously matching his tone to Shiro’s.

“Oh, good. I just got off the phone with Kolivan, he wanted to speak with him.”

“So how’d he take it? Shouting or calm anger?” Keith asks. 

Shiro shudders, closing his eyes for a second. “Calm.” Yikes, definitely the worse of the two evils. While dealing with an angry Kolivan, Keith would take screaming and yelling every time over the terrifying alternative. “He wants to wait till the autopsy before we do anything drastic.” 

“Makes sense, no matter what we do, it’s going to cause a panic. Better to have some answers before,” Keith says. God, he hates this. He’s been trying not to think about it too much. Letting himself joke with Shiro and Matt. Letting himself laugh at Pidge’s antics but none of that changes what’s happened. A kid is dead, a kid that Keith has known for years. 

“You okay?” Shiro asks. 

“Not really but I’m doing good enough. You?” 

“Not in the slightest.” 

“That’s fair,” Keith says. Because what else is he supposed to say? The situation is fucked and there’s nothing he could say that could help. He wouldn’t even know where to begin, anything he says will sound hollow and pointless. And he doesn’t need to, Shiro already knows. He knows what Keith is like, how he can never find the right words. But it doesn’t matter because he knows that Keith cares. Keith is shit at this kind of this but Shiro excels at it. 

He’s always been that way, since the day that they met. Shiro had been sent to Keith’s school to lecture about the dangers of drugs or something. To be honest, Keith didn’t pay attention to the speech so he doesn’t totally know what it was about. For some reason, Shiro saw something in Keith and decided to talk to him. And wouldn’t stop talking to him, young Keith was actually pretty annoyed by it, not appreciating Shiro’s efforts at all. Somehow Shiro had ended up convincing Keith’s mom to sign Keith up for the big brother program to help with the whole teenage rebellion phase Keith was going through. It, of course, was just a ploy for Shiro to watch out for Keith, help him grow into who he is now. 

He owes Shiro so much. 

Course Keith is never ever gonna tell him that or else he’ll be a total bitch about it. He’d force Keith into so many hugs and bring it up anytime they’re in the middle of an argument, use it against him so he could win. He’d have so much fun with it and be real petty about it too. 

“Today started out so normal. It’s weird that it took us here,” Keith says thoughtfully, watching his coworkers dashing all around the place, handling all sorts of different jobs. Two guys push a gurney down into the alley. When they come back, a long black bag rests on top of it. It makes him feel sick. 

“Yeah, I can’t believe it. Really thought he’d just ran off, was staying with a friend or something. It wouldn’t have been the first time,” Shiro says, staring down the gurney as well. “Romelle said something was wrong but we didn’t listen to her.”

“Don’t do that, Shiro. You couldn’t have known.”

“I just wish things were different,” Shiro says, hands clenched together in a fist, pale fingers wrapping around each other.

“We all do.” 

How could they not? 

Someone violently and horrifically murdered Bandor Pollux, a seventeen-year-old boy. 

Everything has changed, he wants to pretend that is hasn’t but it has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, remember when I put in the tags that there was going to probably be police inaccuracies? That was before I realized how little I truly know how things work. Oops.
> 
> Me? Basing all of this off Brooklyn nine nine? Hahahaha, I have no idea what you're talking about.
> 
> Also I would just like everyone to know that I came up for this idea way before Umbrella Academy came out. And Umbrella Academy is amazing, go watch it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I'm not sure where/if I'll be able to fit this into the story. Here's some information.
> 
> The month is april
> 
> Lance Mclain: Age 19  
> Veronica Mclain: Died at 20, would be 21  
> Keith Kogane: Age 21  
> Hunk Garrett: Age 20  
> Pidge or Katie Holt: Age 17  
> Allura Altea: Age 21  
> Takashi Shirogane: Age 27  
> Adam West: Age 27  
> Romelle Pollux: Age 20  
> Bandor Pollux: Age 17  
> Shay Balmera: Age 20  
> Lotor Daibazaal: 26. 
> 
> Lance's siblings:  
> Marco: Age 24  
> Rachel: 19  
> Luis: 15

[Lance’s P.O.V]

 

Lance lays draped against the car door, legs curled up under him. His eyes droop closed, only opening when a splash of light from the street lamp hit his face, nearly blinding him and causing him to blink away the dark shapes that appear. His head is like a dumbbell, nearly tilting over and slamming against the glass window. His elbow leans pressed on the armrest, holding up his head, taking all his weight and making it ache.

The car rumbles and the officer is silent, dark eyes focused on the road in front of them, aura a cool grey. Lance doesn’t remember his name, thinks it may start with an A. To be honest, Lance doesn’t remember much of how he got here. He knows he went to bed but then suddenly he was outside and cold, surrounded by cops, all staring at him.

Then the officer with the boring grey aura took him to the police station where he spent hours answering question after question. He didn’t have any answers for them, at least not the ones they wanted, barely understanding what they were even asking of him.

There was blood, he remembers that, it’s like it follows him.

But everything else is just a blur, as if he was watching himself through the glass of a fogged up window.

There was someone else there, someone kind… with pretty eyes.

And stupid hair.

He thinks that they spoke to him and were sweet to him, helped him. But he can’t quite remember what they talked about. But their voice was deep yet soft and soothing. He liked their voice.

He should probably be more concerned about the gaps in his memory. Veronica won’t like it, she’ll get that worried look of her’s. Mouth turned down in a frown, eyebrows furrowed together, making her forehead all wrinkly. White teeth snapping down and leaving dark red marks on her lips. She’ll pick at her fingernails like she always does when she’s upset.

He could just not tell her. That would make his life a hell of a lot easier. Though, it’ll be an absolute nightmare if she finds he kept it from her. She’d probably never forgive him, spending hours just lecturing him about how irresponsible he is. Then she’d spend the next several days with a permanent glare on her face.

Plus he’d end up feeling pretty guilty. Veronica had always known how to pull just the right strings to cause the right reactions and emotions. She’ll know how to make him just feel completely awful until he’s begging for her forgiveness.

Which like a kind benevolent queen she will grant him. But she’ll also bring it up the next time he screws up.

He lets a weak puff of air past his lips.

She’s only worried about him, he knows that. But sometimes her love feels suffocating, only serving to piss him right the fuck off.

Which is so shitty.

He doesn’t have the right to be angry at her. All she wants is to look after him, make sure he’s okay. And he’s over here acting like a bratty toddler when he has everything. And she has nothing. She can’t even feel the rain.

And it’s his fault.

She’d kill him if she heard him thinking that. Tell him all about how she made her choice and still she stands by it like she says every single time he even hints that her death could possibly his fault. But that doesn’t change anything. Her words feel hollow, echoing in his head like a weak piece of plastic. Pointless and meaningless.

Nothing she says will change what happened.

Outside his window, the sun is just beginning to rise, turning the sky a masterpiece of warm oranges and soft pinks. Clouds dotted in between the colors, spreading thinly across it, becoming almost opaque and letting you see the remaining dark blue sky underneath the fluffy white.

He’s always wanted to escape away to the clouds, sleep on top of one, use it a bed and a blanket. He also used to dream of eating it. Sometimes he imagined that it would taste like whipped cream or maybe ice cream. Realistically he knows that it’s just water vapor and probably wouldn’t taste like anything.

Huge pine trees tower over them, making Lance feel all too aware of how small he is. The trees are like giants with entire lifetimes worth of stories. One day he will be long gone but they will still be here. It’s a mindboggling thought, it terrifies him but is also oddly comforting.

The car creaks to a stop, jerking forward slightly, nearly making him lose his balance and topple over. He uncurls the fists he’d unknowingly made, stretching out his aching fingers. Should he say something? He doesn’t even know his name but it seems rude to just leave.

“Uh, thanks for the ride I guess,” Lance says before slipping out the door, slamming it shut behind him with a loud thunk. He takes four steps forward, bare feet stepping on the stone pathway before a desperate looking Veronica appears in front of him.

“Where the hell have you been!?”

He doesn’t say anything, choosing to wait until he’s out of sight from the police officer. He doesn’t need them thinking he’s any more crazy than they probably already do. After all, he literally told the police that he went on a walk in his fucking pajamas, ending up miles away from his house, trying to act like any of that was normal. He trudges forward, stepping on the wooden steps which creak under his weight.

“Hey, is that a cop car?” Bandor asks from somewhere behind Lance and oh fuck here we go.

He hears a loud deep inhalation of breath from Veronica. “Lance, why is there a police car here? What did you do? Lance, what did you do?” She asks, becoming increasingly panicked. And then she notices the blood on his pants and becomes practically manic, “Oh my god, is that fucking blood!?”

After he’s hidden safely behind the door, forehead pressed up against the cool smooth wood. He lets out a sigh, taking a moment to pull himself together. He turns to Veronica who stands firmly in front of him, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, left foot tapping impatiently up and down against the floor.

“What did you do?” She repeats.

“Nothing! Veronica, I didn’t do anything. Why are you assuming it’s my fault!?”

“Because you just got brought in a police car. Last time that happened you got drunk with your idiot friends!”

He wilts, body slumping over and all fight leaving his bones. He just knew she was going to bring that up. “Ronnie, I was fifteen, you need to let that go!”

Veronica opens her mouth to say something else, probably another scathing retort but luckily Lance never gets to hear it as a rumbly cough comes from the other side of the room. The two of them look over, only now reminded that they aren’t alone.

“As entertaining as this fight is, I’m much more curious about the cop and how you just disappeared,” Bandor says, coming closer, head cocked to the side, red hair in his eyes but he doesn’t seem to mind. “Neither of us could find you.”

“Yeah, Lance… that’s never happened before,” Veronica says softly, eyes staring downcast at the faded rug at their feet. “I’ve always been able to find you, find anyone but this time there was nothing. You were just gone.”

Lance lets out a nervous laugh and rubs his hand against the back of his neck. “Oh god, Ronnie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

He’s done it again.

He’s made her worry about him again.

She’s always watching him, always trying to help and take care of him, always worrying about him. It’s all she does these days but it’s not like there’s much else she could do.

It isn’t fair to her, she doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t deserve any of this. It’s exceptionally cruel to force her to spend her afterlife terrified for him.

“So… where were you?” Bandor asks.

Well, he might as well just go ahead and get this over with. Though he’s not really sure where to start. None of it seems like a good beginning. “Uh, I found your body,” Lance says to Bandor, eyes staring intently at the redhead, searching for the smallest reaction, anything to let Lance know how he’s taking it.

“Oh shit, really? I was wondering where that got to.” Well… he’s certainly handling it better than Lance was expecting. He sort of thought he’d have a bit more of a meltdown or something. Lance knows without a doubt that he’d be freaking out if he was in Bandor’s shoes.

Veronica clears her throat, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. “Um, how exactly do not know what happened to your body?”

Bandor shrugs, looking sort of sheepish and almost embarrassed. “I don’t know, things were really freaking weird. I don’t even know where I was to begin with, think it was a basement or something, there was lots of cement. Next thing I knew I was back home and no one could see me.” Lance thinks that if Veronica were still alive, her skin would be pale and clammy. Instead, her expression is simply horrified, eyes wide and jaw clenched. He assumes that he must look pretty much the same. Hearing about a seventeen-year-old kid’s murder would leave anyone feeling at least a little bit sick.

“I am so sorry,” Veronica says.

“Ew, shut up, I don’t want your pity.” Not surprisingly, Bandor’s death is very clearly a touchy subject.

Veronica is shocked into silence though, eyebrows dipping in concern, mouth hanging open in obvious want to say something, something to make it better. Veronica is and has always been the big sister. She was always looking after him and Rachel, Luis too even though he didn’t need it much. It’s only natural that she wants to help this boy.

“Okay, how about we just move on,” she says softly before turning back to face Lance. “Lance, how’d you even find his… body?”

“Oh, that’s the part of the story you’re really not going to like,” he says, shoving his hands into his pocket, letting his head hang.

“What. Does. That. Mean?” Veronica asks slowly, tone harsh, teeth pressed tightly together. Okay, he’s really regretting choosing honestly. In fact, he doesn’t want to tell her anymore. Maybe he can just spout out some stupid silly half thought out lie and get out of this increasingly stressful situation.

But she’d never forgive him.

And he can’t lose her too, she’s all he has left. Even if in a way he’s already lost her, she’s still the only one he can really talk to. The only one who doesn’t look at him with pity or disgusting interest, eyes lighting up like his tragedy, his loss is something great.

“I don’t really know.”

His words hang heavy in the air. He can almost see them floating there in front of him stuck on metal hooks.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Veronica asks, voice low.

“Uh, I went to bed and woke up next to Bandor’s body.” Veronica lets out a groan.

“Oh my god,” She says, head dropping backwards, eyes slipping shut. “You’re joking, please tell me you’re joking.” She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, roughly chomping down onto it. If she was alive, it would surely be painful. But she doesn’t feel pain anymore. At least not anything physical. He supposes that it’s almost a little bit of a good thing, a good thing from a really fucking awful thing.

“No, I-I’m sorry. I really don’t know what happened.”

Bandor is laughing. Veronica is running a hand through her short caramel hair, the strands sticking up for a moment before falling all over the place, pointing and curling in random directions. Idly he wonders how a ghost’s hair can be messy but it’s not like that matters right now. There are much much more important things to discuss.

“Are… are you okay?” Veronica asks.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Okay yeah, so good is a bit of a stretch. He’s covered in scrapes and scratches and he’s completely exhausted but at least he’s breathing. At least he didn’t get horribly murdered by a psycho that’s apparently on the loose.

Veronica gives him a look, a look he knows all too well. She doesn’t believe him and wants to call him out on it, wants to say something to him. She probably has a whole lecture already plotted out in her head. But he knows that she won’t say any of it, she’s too worried about him to start yelling at him. Bit of a relief if he’s being honest.

“Are you guys always like this cause if so, your lives are fucked up,” Bandor says, silently slumping down onto the couch, throwing his feet up onto the coffee table, tapping the tips of his dark green sneakers together.

Ignoring him, Veronica continues, “Explain everything and don’t leave out a single detail.”

“Uh, like I said I was just suddenly standing next to Bandor’s body,” Lance says, awkwardly running his tongue along his teeth. “I called the police and then… I think I might’ve taken a bit of a nap. The cops showed up, we talked for a while, I answered a lot of questions and now we’re here.”

“What did you tell the police?” She asks.

Lance lets out a hissing noise, breathing in air through his teeth. “That I went for a walk?” He says, tone rising and making it sound more like a question than the statement that it is.

Veronica sighs, rubbing her temples as if she has a headache. He imagines that she must have the closest thing a ghost can get to a headache.

Lance has always been able to pinpoint the thing that will annoy someone most and give them the absolute most painful headache. For example, singing the SpongeBob campfire song song song at the top of his lungs at three am. It’s honestly his greatest talent and apparently, it can even surpass death.

“Oh dude, you are so fucked,” Bandor says.

“Yes, thank you so much for stating the obvious, it’s really very helpful,” Lance says, dropping down next to Bandor, grabbing the fuzzy multi-covered quilt off the armrest. He wraps it around himself, curling up in a ball and resting his head on a soft fluffy white pillow.

“Shouldn’t you get changed?” Veronica asks softly, eyeing the edge of his pants splotted in dark red. He curls up even tighter, hiding even deeper under the blanket. He kicks his legs, freeing himself of his pajama bottoms and leaving only his boxers.

He can’t bear to keep wearing blood-soaked clothes but he really doesn’t have it in him to get up, eyes drooping and body somehow both light and heavy, bones like weights but also like balloons.

He lets out a yawn. Balloon bones, now that’s a funny thought. Or maybe a terrifying one, he’s not sure.

“So how suspicious were you?” Veronica asks, coming over to stand by the couch, crouching down so she’s able to stare him right in the eye.

“Ronnie, I told them that I went for a walk in my pajamas, didn’t even try to explain how I ended up on the other side of town. I probably looked like a total psycho. Like Bandor said, I’m fucked.”

“Glad somebody's listening to me,” Bandor says.

“Okay, that’s okay. We’ve just gotta figure out a way to fix this. We can do that, won’t be the first time you’ve lied to the cops,” she says, voice breathless, clearly trying to rationalize this entire situation but he’s not going to stop her. She’s gotten him out of worse situations with her brains, maybe she’ll actually be able to do it again.

“Seriously though, I was fifteen, let it go,” he says, letting the stupid silly argument wash over him, its familiarity a comfort. Next, he’ll bring up how when she was sixteen, she snuck her girlfriend into her room at 2 am and he walked in on them half dressed and passionately making out. She swore him to secrecy, bribing him with fifty bucks and armfuls of chocolate.

“I think I’m going to check on Romelle, she probably knows by now,” Bandor says. “See you dudes later.” And when Lance glances over he’s already gone, disappeared. His heart aches for him, for his family. The pain that they’re going through is one few understand. It’s terrible and the empty black hole it leaves in your heart will never leave, never be filled again. He wishes he could help.

His body is begging, pleading for rest but he doesn’t think he’s going to sleep anytime soon. His mind is too noisy, head buzzing and thoughts racing. He can’t get Bandor’s body out of his head, the stench, the blood.

“Maybe you should go home,” Veronica says.

“No,” he says firmly, letting his eyelids fall, it makes the sight of the body stronger but he doesn’t open them back up. He doesn’t want to look at Veronica right now. This is all too much like those days shortly after the fire. “Would only make me look even more suspicious, like I’m running away.”

“Mami would know what to do.” Now that, that pisses him off, feels the anger burn in his chest, spreading through his body like a raging fire leaving ash and ruins in its wake.

“Mami,” he says the word cruelly, sarcastically like it’s a joke. “Wouldn’t believe me, like she never believed me, like you never believed me.” He loves his mother, loves his whole family but it hurt, hurt being called a liar when you just desperately needed someone to believe you. He knows it’s a stupid thing to hold onto, it was such a long time ago but that doesn’t stop the sharp stinging pain he feels.

Veronica makes a sad little tutting noise and Lance hides his face in the blanket. “You were six, hermanito, I was eight. The stories you told were like fairytales, silly stories, and imaginary friends. And then you just stopped talking about it. I thought it was just a game from when we were little.”

“But then you died,” Lance says quietly, voice muffled from the fabric of the quilt.

“But then I died,” she repeats. “And you tried to ignore me but you were absolute shit at it. God, you were so obvious. Shielding your eyes and looking away whenever I appeared in front of me, constantly making eye contact with me just to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“I didn’t know what to do,” he says as she shifts to sit on the floor, back pressed up against the coffee table. Her hair falls in front of her eyes and he desperately wants to reach forward to move it, never wanted to push someone’s hair out of their eyes so much before. “You were dead and scared and I should have talked to you sooner, helped you, comforted you. But I was scared too and I just panicked. It seemed so much easier to act like you weren’t there than actually face you.”

“Two whole weeks of trying to get you to stop being stubborn and just talk to me,” she says with a light airy laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“No no, Lance, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It’s okay, really.”

“I should’ve been there for you.”

“And you are now,” She says, smiling at him, showing off all her pretty white teeth. It makes him remember what her mouth looked like after the fire. How it was filled with blood. He’s not quite sure how that happened. Must have been sometime when he was unconscious.

“Not really, I’m just here, you’re the one being all responsible and caring,” he says, drawing a loose thread around his finger, turning it red and cutting off the circulation. “I appreciate it you know, I know I don’t act like it but I do.”

“I know, mi hermanito, te amo,” she says.

“Te amo,” he repeats.

 

* * *

 

[Keith’s P.O.V]

 

The sun shines weakly above them, the morning air soft and fresh, smelling like flowers and dew. Next to him, Shiro smells like sweat and grime. Their shift had been long and complicated, running around all night handling things. Not much time for a shower or even a short break.

His hands shake as he takes his keys out of his pocket, the metal clinking against each other loudly. It takes a mini eternity but eventually he finds the right key, quickly unlocking the door to his apartment and lurching inside, nearly tripping over his own feet. Shiro follows closely after, closing the door behind him and collapsing onto Keith’s comfy black recliner chair.

Keith heads over the kitchen, flinging the fridge door open and peering inside. “Shouldn’t you be getting home to your fiance?”

Shiro groans. “He’s already at work and I am much too tired to get up.”

“Woah, never thought I’d the day where Takashi Shirogane was lazy. You sure this is real? I’m not dreaming?” Keith jokes, grabbing to glass beer bottles that clink together in his grip. Keith sluggishly makes his way back to Shiro, the long day and little sleep hitting him hard.

“Oh haha, very funny,” Shiro says, letting his eyes slip shut and reaching his hand up to tightly squeeze the bridge of his nose.

Very carefully, Keith lightly throws the bottle to Shiro, it lands softly in his lap, earning a quiet grunt from him. Desperate to get off his feet, Keith roughly dumps his body onto his couch.

It creaks and lurches from his weight, he thinks that it’s really only a matter of time until the couch just falls apart. Shiro has been getting on his case for ages about getting a new one but Keith ain’t throwing it away until it’s absolutely broken beyond repair, until it’s crumbled into a thousand jagged pieces. He’ll probably give the remains to Pidge, she could burn it in the fire pit in her backyard, would make a fun day. Though he’s sure she’d find some way to make it weird, like she does everything.

Keith has just opened his beer, taken the very first sip when his phone begins to ring.

Keith sighs and Shiro lets out a loud groan. Keith leans forward, placing the beer bottle on the floor before dropping back into the couch cushions with a huff. He takes the buzzing phone out of his pocket, noting that it’s Matt that’s calling. He could be calling just to catch up or talk about his latest experiment but more likely he’s calling about the case. Shiro watches him, eyes slits and hand having moved to lay dramatically draped out his face.

For a short second Keith contemplates letting it go to voicemail. But he knows he can’t do that, no matter how appealing it sounds at the moment. With another little sigh, he pushes the green answer button.

Matt’s loud voice immediately explodes out from the speaker, “Yo Keith, where are you right now?” Now Keith knows that there is absolutely no chance Matt has slept recently, probably hasn’t for a few days. Oh great, he’s enthusiastic. Keith doesn’t know what it is about the Holt siblings but there’s just something in their genes that makes it so they need half as much sleep as a normal person does. It’s a crazy strange inhuman ability of theirs. Honestly, it terrifies him a little bit.

“Home, trying to relax, maybe actually get more than eight minutes of sleep,” Keith says, attention only about fifty percent focused on the conversation. He’s got lots of practice talking to Matt, he won’t miss anything. He stares up at the white ceiling, searching for little shapes and patterns in the paint.

“Pftt, lame. Anyways, got some good news for you, buddy,” Matt says and Keith can vaguely hear a whooshing noise coming from the phone. Probably means that Matt is currently sitting in a spinning desk chair. “It’s looking like your hunch might be right. Got security footage from down the street where we found Bandor. See a guy in a hoodie with a big full duffel bag go in and come out with it empty. Few hours later Lance shows up and then we get the call.”

Keith shoots upward, running a hand through his black locks. “That’s great! That’s a lead!”

“Not really, can’t find anything on the dude with the duffel bag so far. And it’s not like it totally clears Lance, pretty sure Kolivan still thinks he has something do with it.”

And Keith feels his heart drop.

“What? Why?” Keith asks, a sense of urgency seeping into his voice.

“Footage shows he walked straight to the body, around corners and everything, no hesitation. Like he already knew where the body was,” Matt says

“That’s… not good.”

He doesn’t know why he cares so much and he knows it’s stupid to let himself feel bad for a suspect, to let his emotions could his judgment but there’s just something about Lance that tells Keith he’s not guilty. It doesn’t make any sense, he knows but he also knows that Lance is innocent. He can feel it so strongly, like the entire universe is slapping him over the head to let him know.

“Doesn’t mean he’s guilty, just that he knows more than he’s letting on. Which we basically already knew considering his shifty ass behavior,” Matt says. It’s still not good. In fact, it’s worse than just not good. Lance is being shady, clearly lying to a police officer in a murder investigation. He’s going to end up behind bars.

Why does that thought leave him feeling so dissatisfied?

It causes an awful heavy feeling in his chest, a feeling of dread burning through his lungs. His stomach twists and turns, threatening to spill his last meal. His skin stings and prickles, making him jerk awkwardly, rubbing his arms together to relieve the pain.

He shouldn’t care this much.

And he doesn’t, not really.

It’s just that no matter how crazy it sounds Keith knows Lance didn’t kill Bandor. And he can't just stand by as an innocent man gets locked away for something he didn’t do, hates the simple idea of it so much that it makes him feel sick. It’s just plain fucking wrong. That’s not how justice should work.

That’s the only reason Keith even remotely cares. It’s his job, he has an obligation as a cop to protect the innocent and arrest the guilty. And boy does he want to take down the bastard that chose to murder a kid.

“Well thanks for keeping me updated, dude,” Keith says, gently flicking his finger against his phone.

“No problem, man, you were the first one there. This is largely your case,” Matt says, voice changing to become pitchier, sound like nails on a chalkboard or a cat with a very sore throat. “Also Pidge may or may not be coming over to your place for her revenge. Kay cool, bye.” He hangs up.

“Coward,” Keith says, muttering it under his breath.

“What was that about?” Shiro asks. Keith gives Shiro a quick rundown of everything Matt told him over the phone. Like the true old man he is, Shiro taps his chin thoughtfully, nodding along as Keith explains. It’s a shame that Shiro doesn’t have a great beard or a monocle to go along with it. “Yeah, Mclain definitely has something to with this, probably an accomplice.”

Keith opens his mouth, prepared to argue but he stops, pauses to take a moment. There’s no point in fighting with Shiro. Shiro hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s just sharing his opinion, an opinion Keith would normally probably agree with. And he doesn’t want Shiro to think he’s become emotionally invested, he’d give him the eyebrows of disappointment. Which wouldn’t even be warranted, Keith is not emotionally invested, he just wants to do the right thing and prove he’s right.

Keith slurps up a mouthful of beer, gulping it down greedily. This day has been long and he desperately needs it. “This whole thing still doesn’t feel real, like I’ll wake up to find out this was just a dream, I fell asleep in my cruiser or something.”

“I know how you mean, it just doesn’t seem possible,” Shiro says, breathing out a sigh. “Captain will have told Bandor’s family by now. God, I can’t imagine.”

Keith nods his head, tapping the heel of his foot against the leg of the couch. Somehow he finds himself slumping even more into the couch, probably looking like an absolutely angsty teenager. “It’s a really fucking shitty thing to have to be told someone you love is dead.” He remembers being seven years old, finger painting in class when the intercom crackles on, calling him to the office. Mom was there waiting for him, sitting on the shiny uncomfortable green chairs, tears in her eyes.

She pulled him close, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug before she told him.

He can still hear her speak those words in his head, voice soft, hoarse from crying.

_“Keith, there was an accident at daddy’s work today. He… he’s not coming home.”_

All right, it’s time to end that fucking train of thought. It is not a good idea to let himself think about that day, that moment. He knows how he gets if he spends too much time obsessing over what happened. He can’t put his mom and Shiro though that again.

He shakes his head as if that will throw the thoughts from his mind. Who knows, maybe it will. He’s not a… brain scientist. Crap, what’s that called again? A neurologist? Right, he definitely knew that. God, he needs to go to sleep.

“You good?” Shiro asks.

“Yeah.”

“You know you can talk to me.”

“Yeah I know,” Keith says, exasperation seeping into his voice. He appreciates the concern, really he does but he is not in the mood right now. And Keith is pretty sick of Shiro constantly checking on him, always trying to get Keith to talk to him. But Keith is fine, he’s not having a mental breakdown every second of every day like Shiro seems to believe, he’s good. Keith will talk to him when he needs to, Shiro can stop.

“Great, now I’m gonna rest my eyes for a few,” Shiro says and Keith rolls his eyes.

Rest my eyes for a few is Shiro code for taking up Keith’s living room to sleep for the four or so hours, probably even more. And it takes only a single moment for Shiro to fade away, loud snores erupting from him.

Keith waits, a minute passes. Then another and another. And before he knows it, it’s been twenty minutes and Keith has finished his beer. It looks like Shiro is really down for the count. Good, now Keith can get to work. He slowly rises to his feet, swaying slightly but powering on. He forces his feet to take him to his bedroom where he walks straight to the closet.

Inside are piles of well-worn boxes, smudges and smears line the white cardboard from the many times Keith’s grubby fingers have touched. He grabs one from the top, lifting it with a grunt, carrying it to his bed which he carelessly drops it down onto. The dark red comforter puffing up around the box. He flicks the lid off, it hums through the air before landing on the brown carpet with a quiet thump.

Keith takes out a stack of crisp white papers stapled together. This particular box of files is everything Keith has on all previous crimes committed in the town of Auris in the last eight years. He starts flicking through the pages, skim reading it to find anything of interest, ignoring everything about Pidge or Nyma and Role.

A crime this big, this terrible, surely they’ve already done something ever the slightest bit illegal before. You don’t normally just jump straight into murder, not murder like this anyway. Sure there are crimes of passion and accidental killings but those look nothing like this. Bandor’s death was deliberate and violent, done by someone sick who enjoyed what they were doing. You don’t just cut out and steal eyeballs by accident.

Shiro would have a fucking field day if he found out Keith was doing this instead of resting. But that matters not because Keith was sure to lock the door, Shiro will foolishly believe Keith is sleeping instead of working. But this is more important. He can’t just do nothing.

He has to try.

 

* * *

 

[Lotor’s P.O.V]

 

Lotor is almost never surprised or caught off guard but seeing Lance Mclain in Coran’s Diner certainly did just that. He hadn’t known he was in town. Of course, he’d been expecting him but not so soon. Should’ve known that boy can never do what he’s meant to, stay where he’s supposed to.

He knew the moment he saw Lance that Bandor’s body would be found soon, that he needed to get rid of it, keep it very far from him. The poor boy just can’t help it.

Bandor’s ghost has most likely already made contact as well, he had hoped to keep Lance more isolated but no matter, it did not cause much of a hitch to his plans. More or less everything was still going as it should. He’s still the one in control.

It was annoying, of course. He doesn’t like it when things act out of their place, do as they are not told. But he will just have to make do, suppose that no matter how stupid, how pathetic, that is just how the world works. Quite unfortunate really, very inconvenient.

Lotor walks down a disgusting dirt path, tall trees covering him in shade. His oxford shoes clicking against strips of rocks, sinking marginally into the dirt. They would most likely be dirtied after this, he will have to throw them away. Can’t leave any evidence after all.

His black leather suitcase slams against his hip in a repetitive motion as he walks, swinging with his movement. The metal buckles jingling together, creating an echo around him in the forest. If he wasn’t in such an isolated part of the land he might be worried, he will need to be soon, once he reaches Marmora Lake. But that is still several miles away, having to park far away in case someone recognized his car. Doubtful since it’s one he almost never drives.

But he cannot take chances, this is too important. He will not put everything he’s worked for at risk.

Above him, birds chirp a melodic turn.

Lance has surely fled away to his cabin, cowering from what he saw. Weak.

Seeing young Bador’s body has most likely terrified him for the moment, Lotor will not be seeing much of him for a while. It is for the better that he is out of the way for now. He is not needed for the time being. It is the perfect way to push him aside, get him out of the way without the boy realizing.

He’d heard Lance’s call to the police, heard those idiot cops on their silly radio. They really thought they knew what they were doing, didn’t they?

. The police will suspect him now. How could they not? Lance would have been a complete mess. Shaken by what he’d seen, no idea how he’d even gotten there. And with those walls he built oh so long ago, there was absolutely no chance he told them the truth.

They’d be fools to think him innocent.

Of course, they are fools nonetheless, so easily molded and manipulated. Fools to believe little Lance Mclain would ever, could ever. It really was too easy, almost laughable how easy.

Finally, he reaches the lake, the smell of fresh water and mud hit his senses. The area is deserted, the adults at their jobs and the children at school. Perfect, he wouldn’t want to have to end any witnesses. It would be much too inconvenient. Certainly not worth the time or effort.

He twists his body to the right, unbuckling the shiny silver buckles with two little snapping sounds. He reaches inside, fingertips touching cool glass. With another quick glance around him, just to be sure he’s alone and then pulls out the jar.

To get one last good look at it, he lifts the jar high up above him. The teal blue eyeballs inside glimmer in the sunlight. Really quite a beautiful color. Shame they weren’t any help to him. The beauty in the eyes not nearly enough to make up for the sin of being utterly useless to him. Disgusting choice, an absolute travesty.

At bottom of the jar is a thin layer of cloudy liquid, the eyeballs sloshing around in it, turning a slightly yellow color tinge.

Disgusting.

Pointless.

Useless.

Sightless.

With a growl, he throws the jar into the lake. It creates a large splash, water splattering around the glass. It rapidly sinks down, down, down.

Out of sight out of mind.

Idly, he wonders if Lance’s ability works with pieces and bits of bodies. He doesn’t believe so but he’d like to find out, to see it. Even if it does, he’s bought himself enough time. And Lance treading through a lake to find a jar of Bandor’s eyes?

Sounds like fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait but that's probably going to happen a lot. My life is pretty is hectic. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading <3<3<3


	4. Chapter 4

[Lance’s P.O.V]

 

It’s happening again. 

Because of course, it is. 

He can see it so clearly in his head, the orange couches in Abuela’s living room, they had been staying there for the last couple weeks -well Lance had, the rest of the family had been there for over a month. He had to wait till he got out of the hospital- since they didn’t have a home to go back to. 

It was a weird feeling, technically being homeless. 

Mama and Papa, both so close to tears sitting him and the rest of his siblings down in an attempt to force them to talk about their feelings. Of course, they didn’t see it as forcing, more like encouraging to feel comfortable to talk with them. Lance called it a cheap therapy session that he wanted no part in. 

Instead of participating in the crying fest, Lance stayed silent and separate, sitting far away from the others, sitting curled up on the lazy boy, doing his best impression of a beach ball.

Ignoring Veronica watching them from the corner, hair singed, face melted off, eyeballs little black husks, blood dripping. 

Drip. 

Drip. 

Drip.

The real Veronica -the one sitting right across from him- leans forward, hands clasped together. Anxiously, she wrings them together, around and around. Her glasses have fallen a centimeter down her nose but she makes no movements to fix it. Just like so many times before, Lance finds himself wondering how that’s even possible. It seems like it would make more sense if ghosts worked more like a picture or a painting, hair and clothing stiff and impossible to move. Like something that isn’t real. 

Though ghosts probably shouldn’t even exist. 

He takes in her appearance, looking the closest thing to alive. He’s so unbelievably grateful that she doesn’t look like that anymore, like a corpse. He’s not quite sure what changed. if it was her or him but eventually, her form transformed, shifting back to how looked when she was alive.

While he’s spending his time staring at her, Veronica takes the initiative and speaks first, voice soft and gentle, full of compassion. It causes countless memories to resurface, memories of her using that exact voice on him when they were young. She always knew just how to make him feel all better, fix everything. “Bandor, I’m sure it’s very hard to talk about this but we need as much information as possible.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Bandor says, jerkily nodding his head, blinking rapidly. “I-I… his name is Lotor. Lotor Daibazaal.” 

“Do you… know why he did what he did?” Abuelo asks, watching Bandor with sad kind eyes. 

Bandor shifts, curling up into himself, entire body shaking. (How can a ghost shiver?) “No, no I have no idea. I barely knew the guy. H-he… we talked liked once and I always thought he was sort of a prick, totally creepy but I didn’t realize he was psycho!” 

“You talked to him before?” Veronica asks softly and Lance wonders how she’s so good at this. Lance is just sitting there, watching all of this unfold. He should say something, he should really say something but… what is there to say? Sorry, you died young and innocent, murdered by a monster? Sorry, you’re a ghost?

“Uh yeah, a few months back I was hanging with Romelle and her friends and he dropped a pen. I just gave it back and he thanked me. Then he went back to flirting with Allura,” Bandor says, the terror in his eyes diminishing just the slightest at the mention of his sister. 

“Allura?” Lance finds himself asking. “The girl who works at the diner?” 

“Yeah,” Bandor says, letting out a little chuckle. “He.. he’s totally into her. It’s pointless though, she’s got the biggest crush on Romelle.” Lance pauses, pulling back his memory of back in the diner when he was too busy panicking to notice anything. He plays it like a movie in his head, shot by shot, analyzing each moment. Allura and Romelle… did seem rather close. He hopes they work out, they’d be cute together and Romelle could use something like that with everything going on. 

“We should keep an eye on her just in case, make sure he doesn’t try to hurt her,” Veronica says and just like that, the little tiny sliver of a good mood is thrown back into a dark pit, breaking apart in so many pieces. Bandor seems affected by her words too, dropping open as if he didn’t consider that Allura could be in danger.

Abuelo still just seems sad. He’s too kind, too good of a man. He shouldn’t have to see this, should be with Abuela. 

This whole thing is just so crazy. 

“Do you think you could tell us more about this Lotor? Perhaps we’ll be able to figure out why he… hurt you?” Abuelo says. “Only if you’re comfortable of course.” Lance can’t help but wonder what’s the point in doing that, it’s not like they’re going to magically find all the answers to their questions just by learning a bit about the guy. Seems like a waste of time. 

“Uh, like I said I barely knew him,” Bandor says before pausing, tilting his head as his eyebrows furrow in thought. “Well, I guess that’s not totally true. I barely knew him personally but like everyone sorta knows of him.” 

“What do you mean?” Veronica asks, practically crushing her fingers in her rough grasp at this point, body taut and rigid.

Oh, this is all just too much. 

Veronica is clearly freaking out, stressed far beyond she can take. And if she’s freaking out then they’re fucking screwed. She’s the adult, the responsible one, she always knows what to do. If she’s freaking out then Lance is going to start freaking the fuck out. And then everything is going to fall apart. 

Bandor shrugs lightly, shyly playing with the hem of his sleeve. “Well, his parents died when I was just a little kid so I don’t really remember much about it but I know his dad was a big deal. Some rich dude who owned like half the town, his ancestors even helped found Arus or something. And you’re always hearing rumors about how spoiled and pretentious Lotor is. Again, he’s a dick but everyone knows that.” 

“Oh great, so we’re doing cliches now,” Lance mumbles under his breath, not completely planning for the others to hear him. 

“Whadda you mean?” Bandor asks. 

“In books and movies, the serial killer is always the freaky sociopathic rich guy,” Lance says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, foot bouncing up and down, toes roughly slamming against the wooden floor. 

“This isn’t a movie, Lance,” Veronica scolds. 

“Obviously,” he says, making a noise halfway between a snort and a scoff, perhaps sounding the littlest bit hysterical. “There’s no hot hero to sweep me off my feet. Or heroine, I’m not picky.” 

“Please, like you would be the one getting swept off your feet,” Bandor says, laughing through the shaking in his voice. “If anyone is getting romanced then it’s me, chicks love the ghosts, they’re all about that paranormal shit. Plus I’m the one who got murdered so the universe kinda owes me.” 

And suddenly Lance can see himself, sitting right there instead of Bandor, playing all the silly little games Lance does to avoid the serious emotions. He wonders if seeing yourself in someone else as ever been a good thing, he doesn’t think so. It certainly isn’t right now. 

This boy is just a child, hell Lance isn’t all that much older than him, turning twenty in only a few months. Why would… this Lotor do such a terrible thing? Bandor will never grow because of him, will never fall in love or follow his dreams. 

So much like Lance. 

“I… can we focus please?” Veronica asks, effectively snapping Lance from his thoughts and bringing the conversation back on topic.

“Killjoy,” Bandor says quietly, barely even making any noise, voice closer to just a simple little breath of air. Veronica doesn’t seem to hear but Lance does, fighting not to smile, pushing down the laughter bubbling in his chest. 

Veronica sighs, getting to her feet, gliding across the room before turning around, she begins pacing back and forth. Floating an inch above the ground and shimmering as she phases right through the coffee table, not even seeming to notice. “This is a terrible thing to ask you and I am so so sorry, Bandor, but I need you to tell us about your death. We may be able to find some sort of evidence.” 

If Bandor were alive, Lance is sure that he would’ve just gone pale and clammy, maybe even would’ve puked. Instead, he just closes his eyes. “I-I don’t actually remember a lot about it… it’s all foggy.”

“It’s okay, take your time,” Abuelo says, placing a hand on Bandor’s shoulder, he trembles against Abuelo but it seems to help. He really shouldn’t, it’s stupid and horrible but Lance finds himself feeling almost jealous. What he wouldn’t give to be able to hug Veronica and Abuelo. 

“I know I was at home, sitting on my bed in my room and… I-I think I got a call? I’m not sure but I went somewhere, I know that. I was… was walking down the sidewalk, it was later in the evening, the sun just starting to set when… I-I passed out? And then I was somewhere else, a brick room with no lights or windows. Just Lotor. He was mad about something… I think? Or no, he wanted something. Both? Before I knew it, I was back home but no one could see me.” 

Lance’s head is spinning, the floor and the ceiling dancing around him. He jolts upward, clumsily running to the kitchen, foot slamming painfully against the wooden barstool. 

This is all so much, too much.

How the hell is he supposed to deal with this? 

Hands shaking like he’s sitting in a car with a broken heater in the middle of winter, Lance reaches up above his head, taking a large white mug with a little dolphin design out of the cabinet. He drags his feet through the kitchen, flipping the kettle on, he sets the mug down on the dark smooth counter with a little clinking sound. 

He can hear the water already beginning to boil, a rumbling whooshing noise that’s only getting louder and louder. His heart pounds in beat to the water, drowning out everything else, echoing in his ears, making his head hurt and stomach churn. 

Carelessly, he throws the pantry door open to be met with the scent of dust heavy in the air and spices he’ll never use. It takes him only a moment to find the bright yellow box, almost empty from how often he uses it. He takes out a little packet, ripping it open and dumping the contents into the mug. 

A click goes off, signifying that the water is done and he pours it into the mug, stirring it with a spoon he found on the counter from the last time he made hot chocolate. Just the other day he believes or hopes. Doesn’t matter. 

He can feel three pairs of eyes on him, cutting into his back following his every move, watching as he slowly trudges back over to the living room and unceremoniously collapses onto the old rocking chair his great uncle made so many years ago. 

Lance brings the mug to his mouth, gulping the hot chocolate down despite how it burns, barely even tasting it. Veronica glances over at him, concern in her eyes but fortunately doesn’t say anything. Lance leans back, the rocking chair creaking and shuddering under his weight. 

“Sorry,” he says, voice a quiet murmur as he speaks right into the mug. The glass distorting his words, making him sound funny. 

He slowly lowers the mug to his lap, resting it on top of his thigh, grip tightening around the glass, ignoring the uncomfortable heat pressed against his palm. He swings his right leg, kicking the wooden leg of the couch where Bandor and Abuelo sit, causing it to shake but they don’t move, they don’t feel it. 

“No need to apologize,” Abuelo says, smiling softly at him, eyes giving him away, showing how worried he really is. 

He continues sipping away at his drink, not really looking at any of them, wishing he could just disappear and leave this conversation entirely. He wishes he was writing, deleting that stupid sentence he wrote the other day and now can’t stop thinking about. 

They won’t stop staring at him, he can feel though he pretends no to know. It’s pointless though, he can tell that they’re well aware that he’s just purposely ignoring them. 

Fine.

Might as well get this over with. “I don’t know why you’re all looking at me, I think we’ve established pretty well that I’ve got no idea what to do,” he says, rubbing his thumb against the rim of the mug. 

Veronica sighs but Lance can see an ounce of amusement so he’s counting that one as a win. “I think one of us should stay with you at all times,” She says, voice making it clear that this isn’t a suggestion. 

“Uh, why? No offense but it’s not like any of you can do anything if I end up getting murdered. You’re all incorporeal, remember?” He says, brain being a total dick, making his memories flash across his eyes. Reminding him of every time he’s reached out for Veronica, only to have his hand just go right through her. It happens most often after a nightmare, where he’s so panicked and terrified that he forgets for one singular blissful moment only to be so cruelly reminded. 

“We may still be able to help you, give you ideas on what to do and it would make me feel better, Lance,” Veronica says and Lance lets out a sigh. He can’t just say no to her, not when she’s looking at him with those puppy dog eyes of hers. He had a hard enough time ever telling her no when she was alive, now it’s practically an impossible task. The guilt he feels much too strong. 

“It’s a smart idea, Veronica, we shouldn’t take any chances when such a dangerous individual is out there doing god knows what,” Abuelo says, eyes slipping shut for a moment, shaking his head. Abuelo has been talking with Bandor a lot recently, he probably knows all the details of his gruesome murder. “I will not have my grandson anywhere near him.” 

“Good point Abuelo,” she says before turning back to Lance, “ You’re to avoid him at all costs.”

“Yeah, duh, I wasn’t exactly planning on going near the murderous psycho,” Lance says, rolling his eyes. She really has no faith in him, as if he’d actually want anything to do with that creep. What is he an idiot? 

“As fascinating as these safety precautions are, what are we going to do about him?” Bandor asks, dragging a hand down his face. “We can’t just leave Lotor alone, what if he hurts someone else?” 

“What do you expect us to do?” Lance asks, taking another sip of his hot chocolate, letting the familiar taste wash over him. It’s not as good as when mama makes it but it’s a comforting presence nonetheless, making him think of simpler times. When the people he saw were just that, people. 

“We need to tell the authorities, put him behind bars like he deserves,” Bandor says, voice rising, climbing the mountain. 

“That’s a great idea, I’ll just march down to the police station. Yes, hello officer, this man is a murderer. How do I know this, you ask? A ghost told me so,” Lance says, expressions shifting rapidly as he speaks, his free hand gesturing around like a maniac before all the energy fades from his body and he slumps right back down. “I’d get locked up faster than you can say schizophrenia.” 

“So you want to do nothing?” Bandor asks or more accurately shouts and Lance is already regretting waking up this morning. “He killed me!” 

Abuelo says, “Young man, we cannot imagine how you must be feeling right now and believe me, we want to help you but this is a complicated situation. We cannot take any unnecessary risks, we need to be clever about this.” 

“Yeah, I can’t do anything about it if I’m dead,” Lance sends, earning another glare from Veronica, blue eyes showcasing an authority that demands he behave. And Lance finds himself feeling small, like a little boy caught stealing from the cookie jar.

Lance would stop all this if he could. Bandor wouldn’t be dead, though if Lance had a say in that neither would Veronica or Abuelo. 

If he could go back, he’d pretend he never saw Bandor, never saw Lotor. No, if he could go back, he’d never have gone to the diner. He wouldn’t be caught in this crazy-ass mess. 

He’d be blissfully unaware that there’s a murderer on the loose. 

Suppose that’s pretty selfish. 

“My sister hasn’t stopped crying,” Bandor says and Lance’s heart sinks. He imagines it falling out of the sky like a shooting star. “I feel awful leaving her but I can’t bear to watch her like that. And it’s not like being there will do anything.” He pauses, letting out a teary breath of air. “He did that to her and I can’t just let him get away with it.” Lance thinks if he could see a ghost’s aura that Bandor’s would be nothing but negative emotions. 

“We can’t put Lance in danger,” Veronica says firmly, voice like a tall brick wall or an ocean wave, knocking them off their feet to fall right into the sand. 

“He’s already in danger being in the same town as that lunatic!” Bandor shouts, jerking upwards, standing above Lance, looming like a true ghost. It makes Lance shift and twitch, little chills running across his skin, up his spine. “And Lotor already knows Lance, he saw him in Coran’s diner.” 

“And as we all know, I am an unforgettable beauty so of course, Lotor is going to remember me from that singular moment where we stood in the same room,” Lance says, idly flicking his wrist, swirling the drink in his mug, watching it spin.

“Do you think this is funny!?” Bandor asks, maybe shouts, voice dripping with venom, green little drops falling to the floor.

Lance lets out a little huff. How unfair, only a few minutes ago, Bandor was joking right along with Lance. But now for some reason, it’s apparently inappropriate? Logically, Lance knows that Bandor is just lashing out, that he’s just a kid who has been put through a lot. 

But Lance is a childish bitch. 

“Hysterical,” Lance says, deadpan. He takes a sip of his drink, making sure to slurp it up extra loud. Not only is Lance a middle child, he’s the youngest of the middle children, obnoxious noises are his specialty.

Bandor growls, teeth clenched and Lance realizes that he’s maybe, just maybe fucked up a little bit. “How the fuck can you just say that!?” 

“Maybe you should calm down,” Veronica says, placatingly. 

“Don’t tell me to call down!”

In a short minuscule second, so much happens. 

The lights flicker first. 

Bandor’s face twists and shifts, curving into an expression of fiery rage. 

Bandor blinks in and out of existence. 

When he comes back, he’s different. 

His eyes are gone, his chest full of gaping holes, blood flooding out. 

Lance jolts, stumbling to his feet, swaying back and forth. He hears glass shatter, the mug he assumes but doesn’t bother to look back, no point in checking. Even if it is his favorite mug. He scrambles forward, clumsy and wobbling like a bobblehead, Lance staggers back to the kitchen. 

He reaches the grey dirty sink just in time to expel the contents of his stomach, hands on either side of the sink, he coughs and gags, retching at an unearthly volume. His throat strings, chest aching as the puke pushing it up, feeling it work its way upward through his stomach.

Tears leak out his eyes despite how tightly he squeezes them shut. 

Will he ever get used to it? 

The blood and the smell of rotting flesh? 

He’s been haunted by such atrocious sights since he was just a baby and yet he still reacts like this. He still cries, he still gets sick like it’s the first time. He still longs to hide under a blanket like he used to whenever it got particularly bad, when they wouldn’t stop screaming his name and trying to grab at him only to phase right through, always leaving him so cold. 

He’s overreacting. 

Lance imagines that a person who works at a morgue always has it together, never vomits at the seeing at body no matter how decayed or brutal it is. He imagines that they see body after body but always manage to stay professional, that the worst of the worst wouldn’t surprise them. That death and bodies are their normal. 

Like it’s his normal. 

And yet he still acts like this. 

Like this is something new to him.

Rachel would know what to do, she always did. Bursting into his room in a loud explosion of energy, aura always so red. But the anger was never directed at him, no it was for the monsters and boogie men that haunted his every night. 

She could always tell when it was too much, when he desperately needed his sister. She isn’t like him and he’s glad she’s not. He wouldn’t wish the things he can see on anyone but she does have a sort of… natural talent. She could feel things sometimes. Like when Lance was terrified because a man with a rope around his neck stood at the foot of his bed, staring, always staring. Or when the room got a little too crowded by unwanted dead guests, she knew, knew that she wasn’t quite alone. 

She would always find him, gently coaxing him out from under his bed or his closet or wherever he chose to hide. She’d wrap him in as many fluffy blankets as she could and turn on some stupid movie. She’d crawl under the covers with him, hug him as tightly as she could; and the two of them would eat of the junk food in the house. 

Those were simpler times. 

Now he can’t even bear to look at her.

He doesn’t even know how she’s doing, what she’s been thinking because he never answers her calls. He hasn’t talked to her in ages. Does she miss him as much as he misses her? And if he misses her so much, why can’t he just talk to her? 

A little noise, quiet at first but getting louder and louder interrupts his panic. 

Eyes wet, brimming with tears, he glances over to the living room, craning his neck at an awkward angle. On the floor, laying right next to the couch is his phone, vibrating across the wooden floor, piercing room pushing through the air. 

It flashes, over and over again, blue light showing off all the little dust particles floating in the air. Written in white is a name but he can’t quite make it out from where he stands, looks like a simple singular word. Probably Rachel, it’s always Rachel.

He runs a hand through his caramel locks, letting out a sigh that sounds more like a choked cough. 

Like a beautiful fairy, Veronica floats across the room, hands clutched behind her back she leans forward, practically bent at a full ninety-degree angle. She tilts her head to get a better look, making a little tutting noise once she reads it. “It’s Hunk.”

“Hunk?” Lance repeats, rolling the word around in his mouth, twisting his tongue, ignoring the taste of vomit as he tries to make sense of the simple little word, “Why would he be calling?” No one but his family ever calls him. And he never answers their calls. 

She shrugs. “I dunno. You gonna answer it?”

As a tremor bursts through his body, up his spine and right into his veins, burning him up inside, he lurches forward. He skids across the wood, the scrapes and cuts on his feet from the night before reopening but he ignores it to kneel, sitting on top of his legs. 

Without thinking, no second-guessing normally, he picks up the phone and pushes the green answer button. “H-hello?” His voice quavering, hopefully not too noticeable. 

“Lance!” His voice explodes out from the speaker, making it crackle and pop. The loud noise causes an agonizing sharp pain right behind his left temple and Lance can’t help but wince, “Oh thank god, I’ve been so worried! Are you okay?”

“Uh yeah… yeah, I’m fine. Why?” Lance asks rubbing a hand against the back of his neck, trying desperately to work away the constant ache. 

“It’s all over the news!” Hunk shouts, breathing heavily right up against the phone, voice coming out muffled and strangled, “It’s only been a few hours but it’s everywhere, somebody killed Bandor Pollux and Pidge says you actually found the body.” He pauses, voice softening, “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

Lance’s voice comes out strained, squeaky and high-pitched, “How does Pidge know about that!?”

Hunk lets out a shaky almost hysterical laugh. “I dunno, her brothers a cop, he probably told her. Anyway, you’re staying at your Abuelo’s cabin, right? We’re on the way, you shouldn’t be alone right now.” That… was not what Lance was expecting. 

“Uh, we?” Lance asks softly. 

“Yeah, me and Pidge. We’ll be there soon.” 

“Oh… okay.” Shouldn’t they be more concerned with Romelle or their own families? As far as they know, they could be next, the killer could be anyone. You’d think that they’d be more concerned with their own safety, worried that they might be in danger. 

They might be in danger. 

Oh god, what if Lotor decides to hurt Hunk or Pidge?

Even the thought sends such fear and panic through him, eating away at his organs, writhing and skittering around inside him like a great big hairy spider. 

That can’t happen, he can’t let that happen. 

Growing up, Lance made friends with ease, alive or not. It was his favorite thing in the world and he was damn good at it. He knew just what to say and how to say it to make people smile, make them laugh. He could get anyone to open up to him and he loved getting to know them, learning all about their unique personality. Every single person was different, a new experience with an amazing individual.

He loved people, he loved his friends but they all paled in comparison to Hunk and Pidge.

He’s never felt as close to anybody as he did with Pidge and Hunk. The three of them knew everything about each other, every little embarrassing secret, their hopes and dreams. He always felt so happy, so comfortable with them. 

But things have changed, he’s different now and it’s been over two years since he’s really spent any time with them. The most interaction the two of them have had are boring happy birthday texts every year and when Lance saw Hunk the other day. 

And as good as if felt to see him, it was just a talk. They spoke empty surface-level words, words you’d share with anyone from high school. 

“Yeah, see you soon, buddy,” Hunk says, voice warm. The phone makes a clicking sound and Lance realizes that he’s hung up.

Buddy. 

Huh. 

Lance slowly lowers the phone, taking it away from his ear so he can stare at the screen. Hunk’s name is written in white, right next to it in blue is twenty-two seconds. 

Once again, he runs a hand through his hair, tugging on each strand. His hand comes back gross and greasy. He hasn’t showered in days, hasn’t done is skincare routine in weeks. He’s covered in sweat and grease, coating his body like a second skin. 

And god, his mouth tastes like acid rot. It’s almost like he can feel his taste buds dying. If his stomach wasn’t so empty, he’s probably puke again just from the taste. 

He can’t let Pidge and Hunk see him like this, they’ll think he’s lost it. Not a totally unfair assessment he’ll admit but that doesn’t mean he wants them to think he’s crazy. 

“They’re coming here,” he whispers. “I need a shower.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Bandor asks, not quite shouting but close to it. Oh right, this is happening. How could he forget? 

Veronica lets out a hissing shushing noise, glaring at Bandor and flinging her hand back and forth at him. “Shut up!” Veronica says, mildly threatening Bandor with a few violent gestures. She gives him one last firm glare before turning to Lance, “Ignore him, go clean yourself up.” She says, wrinkling her nose slightly, “You definitely need it.” 

Lance scoffs. “Rude,” he says, pulling a pout.

“Just go,” she says. Lance lets out a sigh, waving his hand in goodbye as he wobbles out of the room. The wooden floorboards creak as he walks into the long narrow hallway, the walls decorated with an assortment of paintings and pictures. 

There’s a picture of Abuelo from when he was just a little boy, he’s out on the front porch of the cabin, Abuelo is curled up in Lance’s Bisabuela’s lap. The two of them sit on the wooden steps, Bisabuela is smiling fondly down at Abuelo as he drinks lemonade from a glass that is much too large for his little hands. 

Right next to the picture is a large painting, taking up several feet of the wall. According to Abuela and mama, Bisabuela was a fun eccentric woman and an amazing artist. Mama told him so many stories about how even when Bisabuela was an old woman with terrible eyesight and arthritis, she never stopped painting. She would sneak into her studio late at night when everyone else was asleep just because she was struck with a random wave of inspiration. 

Lance has always loved this painting, the thousands of different shades of blue, the strange swirls and the even stranger shading. He’s never really been quite sure what it depicts, no one is but Lance always claimed he could see a lion in the abstract sea of blue. 

He doesn’t remember Bisabuela much, she died when he was only six but what he does remember is marvelous. Every time she would visit from her travels, she would bring strange miraculous gifts from different parts of the world, gifts perfect for every grandchild and great-grandchild, she knew them all so well. 

And she would read to Lance every night she could, telling him such fantastical elaborate stories about the people she’d met on her adventures. At least of few of her stories had to be made up but that didn’t make them any less magical to hear. 

Lance is in the middle of stepping forward, away from Bisabuela’s painting when he hears something. Soft voices from the other room linger in the air, just loud enough for him to hear. 

“He’s just running away like a coward!” Bandor hisses.

“Shut your mouth,” Veronica says, voice a quiet whisper but raw and commanding. “He is taking care of himself and seeing friends without me pushing him to. Do you know how rare that is?” She asks, voice raising just the tiniest bit and Lance feels his stomach drop. He looks down as his hands, noticing a papercut on his pinky. Is he really that much of a mess? “It can take me hours just to convince him to get out of bed. This will be good for him.”

Bandor lets out a huff. “Fine, whatever, fuck this.” 

It’s silent for a moment and Lance just about thinks that the conversation is over when Abuelo speaks. “You’re doing all you can, mi niño.” 

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Veronica says. 

“It never does.” 

Lance makes the rest of the trek to the bathroom, closing the door as silently as possible. It still snaps shut with a low click, not loud enough for the others to hear. He wouldn’t want them to know he was eavesdropping. 

He’d get one hell of a lecture from Veronica. 

He ignores his reflection, not in the mood to see the bags under his eyes and the mess that is surely his hair. He bends over, grabbing his dark navy blue towel off the grey tile. He shakes it a bit, making sure no spiders have made the fluffy fabric into their home. Using a towel he left on the floor is probably not the most sanitary thing in the world but it fits with where he is in their life. Plus he doesn’t have any other options. 

He shucks off his clothes, leaving them in a pile right where he found the towel. If anything he’s consistent. Opening the glass door, he reaches inside and flips on the shower. He steps inside, letting the water spray out over him. 

A comforting warmth consumes him, eating away the cold inside. 

Lance takes his shampoo off the little shelf that sits right at eye level for him. He snaps open the shiny wet lid, squeezing out a large handful, dumping it out onto his palm. It’s a pretty sky blue color with pink little swirls, smelling faintly of strawberries. He’d bought it at an insanely expensive price from some fancy money-wasting shop. 

He massages the soap into his hair, the methodical movements failing to soothe him as it usually does. His thoughts swirling around in his head, mixing up and making it all so much more confusing. 

It’s stupid, he knows that it’s stupid. 

But he can’t seem to stop thinking about what he just overheard, what Veronica said. How it takes her ages to simply wake him up. How it’s apparently a miracle that he’s even taking a shower. 

It’s not like this is brand new information, he already knew all this. He was there after all and he’s at least self-aware enough to see how unhealthy his recent life choices are. He’s not so oblivious that he can’t see the clear problems. 

But still, it feels weird to hear it from Veronica. 

He wonders why that is. 

It could simply be because she never actually said it out loud, he’s sure she’s thought it loads of times, countless times but she never said it. Makes it feel more real, more tangible. Which is sort of funny since it’s a ghost he’s thinking about right now. 

Whatever, he’s just overthinking it all. To banish all the unwanted thoughts from his head, he squeezes his eyes shut and sticks his head right under the stream of water. It soaks him, washing over him like an ocean wave or a terrible flood. Pouring down his face, spilling onto his neck in fun little explosive splashes. Little soap suds slide across his skin, ending up sticking on his nose and lips. 

He spends a few minutes standing there, just letting the water sweep over him. Once he’s washed all of the soap from his hair, he lets himself out, grabbing the towel and quickly working to dry himself off. 

The towel lays draped across his head, falling down onto his shoulder. With one hand, he rubs it wildly against his soaked hair, creating tangles. Using his other hand, he leans over the sink to pick his toothbrush up out of the little green cup shaped as a fish with great big googly eyes. Veronica teased him ruthlessly for hours when he bought it. But it made him laugh.

His morning routine is long and boring, slathering the variety of oils and lotions on. He used to take joy from it but now it just feels tedious. But whatever, at least he’ll look good. 

It doesn’t take him too long to finish up and wander back down into the hallway, heading towards his room. Piles of clothes and other random useless clutter lay dotted across the floor like an abstract painting. 

Sitting on a chair that he shoved all the way into the farthest corner is all the laundry that he managed to clean. Looking vaguely like a blob monster, he left it there, planning to leave it for the rest of eternity. He couldn’t be bothered to actually fold and organize them into the correct drawers. Too much work, not enough energy. 

He dresses in his usual summer outfit, throwing on a pair of shorts and a plain white t-shirt with a dark blue collar. He slips his feet into his favorite navy blue converse, the ones with the little white star pattern. Can’t go outside without letting everybody know he’s an obnoxious space case. 

He spares a glance at the full-length mirror laying precariously balanced against the wall. It has a great big crack jagging out from the top right corner into a strange triangle shape in the middle before dropping to the bottom left corner. It’s from when he was little, hiding behind it in a game of hide and seek. When Rachel found him, she’d scared him so bad that he accidentally pushed it right on top of her. 

She had to get six stitches on her forehead, right under her hairline. She was so pissed. 

Lance creeps a little closer to the mirror, hoping to get a better look at himself. He doesn’t look all that bad. He has bags under his eyes and he’s thinner than he’d like, his skeleton more noticeable, clothes hanging off frame just a little more than usual, bit baggier. 

He hopes that he looks just in between horrible and great, skirting right along the line. He doesn’t want to worry Hunk and Pidge but he also can’t seem too okay. 

They’ll be expecting him to be doing much worse than he is. After all, any normal person would be losing their shit, all traumatized. But he isn’t normal, he’s seen his fair share of dead bodies. But they can’t know that, they need to think he’s truly disturbed by what he saw, grieving.

But he also needs them to think he’s okay, that it’s bad but he’s coping. 

Lance twists and turns, lifting his arms high up in the air as he watches his reflection. The shirt stays still, for the most part, riding up his hip only a smidge. Not enough for the scar to be seen. That’s good, he has no idea how he’d explain that one. 

The starburst explosion of burns on his back.

He prefers to keep it covered, hidden from prying eyes.

He hates how it looks. 

Outside his window, tires screech against the gravel. A loud beeping sound goes off, doors opening and shutting. A quiet hum of a conversation can be heard, too soft for Lance to make anything out but he wouldn’t be surprised if they’re talking about him. 

Okay, okay deep breaths, he’s got this.

He enters the front room, noting Bandor and Abuelo are gone right when a violent banging slams against the door, it hardly counts as knocking, classified in its own little category. 

“All right, all right, I’m coming, you don’t need to break down my door,” Lance shouts, raising his voice to make sure they can hear him over all that noise. The “knocking” falters for just a moment before continuing, more rapid and somehow even louder. 

With a groan, Lance flips open the door, letting it crash against the wall. 

Pidge stands on the porch, hand raised, continuing the movement, still knocking despite the lack of a door, hitting nothing but air. She’s taller, not by much, still a tiny little gremlin half his size. Her hair is shorter, no longer reaching down to her waist, it stops right at her shoulders, high and poofy. 

“Heya Pidgeon,” he says, voice light and lofty. 

Her eyebrows dip into a scowl but the way her lips twitch up into a grin gives her away. With her already raised fist, she punches him, leaving his shoulder aching. “Hey, dumbass, missed you.”

Lance makes a cooing noise, covering his heart with the palms of his hands. “Aww, Pidgey, I missed you too. Who would’ve thunk that under all that tough exterior, you’re really just a softie?” She looks like she’s getting ready to hit him again when Hunk joins them, carrying a large glass rectangular plate. A red and white checkered cloth lays on top, hiding its contents from sight. 

“Lance, buddy, hey!” Hunk says, eyes lighting up when he sees Lance. And that, that causes many confusing conflicting emotions to spurt out inside Lance. “How are you?” He asks softly and so so gently. 

“I-I’m good, not great obviously but good,” Lance says, hoping he sounds convincing. 

And he thinks he does because Hunk’s face slumps with sympathy, great big brown eyes warm and comforting. Hunk wiggles, awkwardly shuffling about as he balances the plate, shifting it into one hand so he can reach forward, place his hand on top of Lance’s shoulder -coincidently the one Pidge only just punched- and gives him a gentle squeeze. 

It does wonders for the cold slimly feelings that have coiled around Lance’s organs, freezing his blood and chipping away at his insides. But now it all melts away, changing to feel like a soothing sunny hug. 

“Well, we’re here to help now,” Hunk says, walking past Lance and skittering over to the kitchen to stand right next to Veronica who sits on one of the barstools, watching Hunk with curious eyes. Hunk carefully sets the plate on the counter, making clinking noise as it collides. “I made you Lasanga,” he announces.

Lance’s face splits into a smile. 

Pidge, however, has an opposite reaction, jutting out her bottom lip in a pout and crossing her arms over her chest. “Yeah and he’s been a real dick about it, wouldn’t let me have any. Sharing is caring you know, Hunk.” 

Lance wraps an around pidge, resting his weight on top of her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Pidgey, I’ll let you have some,” he says, gripping her face and squeezes it to make all her baby fat squish out and puff out her cheeks. 

She wriggles away, glaring up at him. “I will shank you, Mclain.” 

He just laughs and begins to stroke her hair, playing with the sandy chestnut strands, creating fun little braids and knots. Just like old times. 

“Then no lasagna for you, Pidgeotto.” 

“Well, this is torture, Hunk’s cooking right there in front of me,” Veronica says, waving her hand right through the food, phasing through over and over again. “Why can’t ghosts eat? Who made all these stupid rules? I want a recall.” 

Lance glances over at her, she’s given up on her attempts to touch the meal. She now lays draped across the counter, head resting on her arms, staring intensely at the plate of food in front of her. 

Seeing her like that, missing something about living so much sends agony racing through him. The sharp pang mixes in with his sudden good mood. His happiness doesn’t exactly diminish or drop, it’s just joined with some less than happy feelings. It’s a wave of confusion, like someone put all the wrong ingrediant in a pot but you can still taste them all individually. 

Lance shakes his head, can’t think about it right. He’ll talk to her later, try to offer some comfort no matter how bad he is at it. He returns his attention to Hunk and pidge to find both of them staring at him, eyebrows furrowed, concern clear. 

“Hey buddy, you sure you’re okay?” Hunk asks and Lance thinks he’s trying to go for nonchalance, not too pushy. Lance watches him take the lid off the lasagna with a click. The smell hits Lance’s senses, making his stomach rumble, growling like a lion.

Lance’s eyes trace the ribbons of color surrounding his friends. 

Hunk’s aura is mostly blue for sad, some red for anger, a little splash of purple for fear. Lance finds himself wondering what it means exactly, who is the fear for? Is Hunk scared that he could be next? Is he worried about his family? How well did he know Bandor? Lance selfishly hopes that they weren’t close, he doesn’t want Hunk to be hurting. 

Pidge’s aura for some reason looks very very different. Not much blue, it’s there of course but the red is so much louder. The purple practically nonexistent and all the colors completely overwhemled with green, green. She’s curious, more curious than anything else. 

That’s not much of a surprise. 

“I appreciate the concern, man but really, I’m good,” Lance says. Hunk looks like he wants to say something more but drops it, wandering around the kitchen, opening different cabinets until he finds what he’s looking for. He takes out three white plates, the ones with the painted pattern Lance and the rest of his sibling made when they were small. Little handprints and messy animals decorating the glass. 

Pidge slither out from his grip, positioning herself to stand right in front of Lance, somehow looking taller than is when she gives him a sly mischevious look. “What’d the body look like?” She asks. Hunk gasps. She continues, “I heard it was really bad, lotta blood.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Lance asks.

“Stole a police radio, modified it,” she says with a shrug. 

“Wow, I forgot how crazy she is,” Veronica says. 

“So come on, spill, I want all the details,” Pidge says, as if they’re just normal teenagers gossiping about a date or a party.

Lance shifts from foot to foot, toeing at the ground. “I’m not sure I can tell you that. I wouldn’t want to freak you out or anything.” 

He hears Hunk let out a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god.” Lance turns to see that Hunk has finished dishing out the lasagna, three plates waiting for them at the kitchen table. “Now get over here and eat, you’re too skinny, Lance.” 

“You sound like my Abuela,” he teases. 

Pidge looks disappointed, shoulders slumped and the green of her aura, popping and crackling, swirling in wild untamed circles. The ribbons tangling and catching on each other. 

He lets out a sigh. “Fine, I’ll tell you about it after we eat but no gory details. I am not traumatizing you guys.” 

“Bad idea,” Veronica says, shaking her head at him. 

He ignores her, choosing to instead shove Pidge out of his way and race over to the table, dramatically flinging himself into a seat. Hunk is laughing at his antics, Pidge grumbling under her breath and kicking at his shins. 

Lance doesn’t waste any time taking a bite, shoving a mouthful of delicious lasangna into his mouth. Veronica is laughing at him but it doesn’t matter because Pidge is right there with him. She’s shoveling it away, moving at the speed of light, a third of her plate already gone. He takes a moment to wonder how she’s so thin when she eats like that but quickly gets distracted, enraptured with the fantastic flavors. 

He figures that they probably look ridiculous but it’s not like either of them care, this is Hunk Garrett’s cooking they’re talking about here. It’s a work of art, a masterpiece and it’s only gotten better over the years. 

Lance looks up from his demolished plate, the square slice crushed, cheese and tomato sauce spilled all across the glass plate, Veronica’s little handprint shining through. 

Hunk sits to his right, eating calmly and leisurely like he always does. He smiles at Lance when he catches him looking. Later Hunk will probably shake his head at them, calling them wild animals or heathens. He’ll tell them to be careful or they’ll choke, that they should try to savor and enjoy the food more. 

Pidge sits right across from him, hair falling in her face, glasses tipping down her nose. As he watches right now, he begins to understand the comparison of the two of them eating and a wild animal. Because right now she looks like a ravenous monster, eating everything in sight, tearing apart the world. He thinks she’d appreciate that take, would enjoy being seen as a dangerous creature. 

Coiled deep in his gut is warmth, strong and tingly. It spreads throughout his entire being, leaving a giddy joy in its wake, soaking up all the blue in his own aura. He can’t actually see his own aura but he imagines there’s a lot of blue. 

This is nice. 

This is really nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now why you may ask, did this chapter take me so long? 
> 
> Well children, I have to make things incredibly difficult and have decided to completely rework my future plot. 
> 
> Also i just couldn't seem to find a good ending for it and it was just such a bitch to write, fighting me the entire way. I'm not totally sure if I like this chapter or not but it's finished. I did it.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates are gonna be kinda sporadic. And I am still working on "What's wrong with a little bit of paint?" The next chapter will be out soon. 
> 
> But what do you think? Any parts you didn't like or were confused? Any spelling errors? Constructive criticism is always welcome! 
> 
> I worked really hard on this and I'm pretty proud.<3  
> Thanks for reading.


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